Just Breathe (A Twilight Fanfiction)
by TheMetaBard
Summary: Edward has cystic fibrosis, a disease that affects all aspects of his life. But, he's been managing it for so long that it's just a part of who he is. Then he meets Bella, a girl with a brain tumor that refuses to be defined by her disease. When the boy dying to live meets the girl living to die, they both learns it's okay to just breathe. (AU / All Human / M-ish)
1. Chapter 1

**So, anyway, have you guys heard that I hate this franchise? Because I do. I really, truly do. But, the characters are really fuck-with-able and I like that for literary reasons, I guess.** **I don't know anymore, really.**

 **Enjoy and review, I guess?**

* * *

 _Edward_

I frowned.

My pulse oximeter – this little device I clipped to my fingertip to measure the percent of oxygen in my bloodstream – made a happy _beep boop_ to let me know it was done calculating and then flashed the number 87% for my results.

That was two percent lower than it was yesterday.

I pulled out my composition book marked on the front with 'CF' and wrote down the results. I allowed a three percent margin of error in my saturation calculations. I mean, there were a lot of factors that went into it – if I just exercised, how the weather was, how humid it was, if I had a good night's sleep, etc.

However, I was frowning because when I flipped through the last week, my sats were slowly declining by one to two percent everyday. That wasn't good. That meant my arteries were working too hard and my lungs were working too hard. Well, my lungs were _always_ working too hard. But when my arteries were working too hard and my lungs were working too hard, it stressed out my heart.

I frowned and then coughed into my fist as I looked through my comp book. My medications I've taken, my bowel habits, heartburn trends, my meals with calories, how my symptoms have been, and then usually some sort of one-liner that summarized the day. Yesterday's one-liner was a Nietzsche quote: _"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."_

It was basically my life on paper. My life with cystic fibrosis.

"Edward!" Mom called from the base of the stairs. "Breakfast!"

I unhooked myself from my room's concentrator – this blue contraption that fed me oxygen through a clear cannula in my nose and I hooked myself up to my portable oxygen concentrator - a purse-sized device that sat in a black bag, grabbed my comp book from my desk and shoved it in my backpack, shoved my feet into my shoes and then started down the stairs, coughing into my fist on the way down.

Alice was already at the breakfast bar, the meter to her insulin pump in one hand and her breakfast burrito in the other. She decided over the winter break to chop off all of her hair – a la Miley Cyrus – and dye it black, much to Mom's chagrin. "Nice of you to join us." She said, without even looking up from her well-worn meter.

"'Nice of you to join us.'" I quoted at her in her nasal-y, stuffed up sinus voice as I hooked my concentrator's strap to the back of the chair.

"Stop it." She elbowed me and then shoved her meter back into her bra. "I know I sound stuffed up." She said and rolled her eyes.

She coughed delicately into the crook of her elbow before picking up her cell phone. "My horoscope says that I'll 'get to know someone intriguing.'" She said, her eyes flashing. "I love new friends."

"What does mine say?" I grinned as I downed the enzyme pill that sat on the plate next to my breakfast and picked up my breakfast burrito.

She elbowed me again and I giggled at her.

Alice was my twin. We shared almost everything – our green eyes, our bronze-y, red hair (hers of which was now black), our noses, our freckles, our germs, our bathroom counter space, and the genetic defect that gave us both CF.

"Alice," Our Mom said from the sink – her honey-colored hair tied up into a messy bun on top of her head and her green eyes riled. "Please _eat_."

"I'm not hungry." She wrinkled as she nibbled on the edge of her burrito. "All night long I get fed and then I wake up and expect to eat _more_ food. I'm _not_ a trash compactor."

I fingered my own G-tube through my shirt in solidarity. We both were underweight. I had done my due diligence - with the help of my meticulous notes - to put back on weight after my last hospitalization in November. I was almost at a point where I could ditch the overnight tube feedings altogether. Alice, on the other hand, was built like a Russian ballet prodigy with an eating disorder, who was always being get after to eat more by our doctors and dieticians.

"Well, if you didn't go to bed so late," Mom scolded. "Then you wouldn't get started late."

Alice sighed out of her nose.

"Will you at least drink your Ensure?"

"Yes, Mom." Alice rolled her eyes and grabbed the bottle from the counter.

"You too, mister." Mom scolded me too, even though I cleared my plate every meal, whether I was hungry or not.

It was my turn to roll my eyes. That was the difference between Alice and I. Alice could skate with her CF. Alice could skip treatments and feedings and do just fine. Alice's CF was _nice_ to her. _Mine_ on the other hand? Mine was finicky and cruel and severe. Mine was a monster. I had to be on my best behavior, or I faced infections, hospitalizations, and exacerbations. I coughed into my fist. _No infections_. I thought. _Not allowed._

Alice's eyes landed on me, full of exasperation. "Are you ready?"

I chugged my Ensure, marked down what I ate in my comp book, with the calories – most of which I had memorized in my head – and stuffed everything back in my backpack. "Yep."

"Make sure she eats her lunch and drinks her Ensures." Mom said to me and I nodded. "Group is tonight at the clinic, don't forget."

"We won't." We both said at the same time.

We drove to school together, since we also shared a car. I drove so Alice could trawl Facebook on her cell phone and text her boyfriend, Jasper. I coughed into my fist – hard enough to dislodge something – and Alice automatically handed me a tissue.

"Thanks." I said as I pulled into the school parking lot, wadding the tissue into my fist.

"No problem." She said without even tearing her eyes away from her phone. "I am your _cyst_ -er."

"We've had CF our _whole lives_ and that joke is still not funny." I said, trying to cough out the tickle in my chest. It was my constant companion along with the breathlessness, the constant feeling of being drowned by my own body fluids and my heart - which would palpitate if I tried to work it out too hard.

I pulled to the front. Alice didn't wear oxygen, so it didn't matter to her. But, for me, parking in the handicap spot felt like I was losing somehow, that CF was winning. _One point for cystic fibrosis, zero for Edward._ And it couldn't win. I wasn't going to let it.

But, that coughing fit had left me wheezing and gasping. I didn't want to overdue it, especially with my sats slowly declining. CF played the immediates, whereas I went for the long game. I forced air through my nose and out of my mouth, listening to my own breaths rattle as I followed an old truck.

Who took the last damn handicap space.

"Goddammit." I cursed loudly, startling Alice.

"What?" She looked up and around for the source of my ire.

"That truck _stole_ the last handicap space." I pointed past her, scowling out the window. They didn't even have a handicap license plate, like we did and the windows were too dark so see if they had a rearview mirror placard.

I looked around the parking lot. Forks High School had four handicap spots. Two of which were occupied by the freshman chemistry teacher with COPD and the administrator with the bad back. Then Jason Halden, a kid with mild cerebral palsy, took the other one.

I watched the door open up. With a truck that old – a model that probably saw the JFK presidency – I expected some old substitute teacher guy. I did not expect a _girl,_ with brown hair and two functioning legs and arms to get out, slam the door shut and then walk herself into the front office.

I felt my face go red with resentment. "That's _not_ cool. She can't take the space like that."

"She _could_ have a reason." Alice said as she watched the girl.

"She seemed to do just fine." I huffed.

"Well, if you can't walk, you can get out here and I can park the car." Alice said innocently, her eyes wide on me.

 _Don't let it win._

I felt my face blaze brighter. "No." I said between my teeth. "I'll be fine."

We pulled into a free space – three rows back – and I grumbled to myself as Alice and I walked to the front of school, reminding myself to inhale through my nose and out of my mouth to keep my heart from racing. I thought about that girl. _Who was she?_ Or, rather: _who did she think she was taking a handicap space like that?_

"Hey you." Jasper greeted Alice with kiss when we got to the front of the school. Kids milled around in tight groups, chatting and laughing with their friends and waiting for the warning bell.

"Hey." She giggled and laced her fingers with his.

I rolled my eyes to the cloudy sky. Jasper and Alice got together after meeting at the clinic. His sister was a respiratory therapist and he worked there during the summer as the front desk.

"Gross." I commented.

"Don't mind him." Alice said, her head against Jasper's chest. "He's mad because all the handicap spaces were taken up."

"Aw man," Jasper said, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked at me with his blue eyes that were so dark, they were almost violet. "I'm sorry."

"It's not a big deal." I said and kicked a rock. "She just didn't _look_ -,"

"Neither do you without your oxygen." Alice said, her eyes rolling at me. "Stop being so _judgmental_."

"I am not-," I jerked with frustration, my concentrator bag slapping against my hip.

"Alright," Jasper said, holding up his hands, a grin sliding up his face. "No Cullen catfights."

Alice stuck her tongue out at me and then turned to Jasper. " _Guess_ what my horoscope said."

They walked away hand-in-hand towards the Lit building. I turned and started for the math and science building for calculus, glaring at the truck that ruined my day.

* * *

"Apparently, there's a new girl." Alice's eyes flashed excitedly as she messed with her meter to her insulin pump before jamming it back into her bra.

I scanned around the cafeteria as I took my enzyme pill. Alice and I were the last new kids to Forks High School. We moved to Forks – this little suburb south of Seattle – after Dad took a teaching position at UW. It was small enough that everyone seemed to know everyone, but big enough that you were still able to get lost in the crowd.

However, even though Alice and I had been attending FHS since the beginning of senior year, we hadn't really made any friends outside of Jasper. It was hard when 1) your extracurriculars were spent inside a CF clinic and 2) you coughed liked you smoked menthols your whole life. We had each other, though, and that was enough.

"Yeah," Jasper said as he gnawed on his pizza. "She was in my English class."

"What's she like?" Alice said, her hand landing on Jasper's arm. "My horoscope said I was going to meet someone 'intriguing' today. Does she seem intriguing?"

"Alice," I said as I continued to scan around. "Eat your food."

She dutifully picked up her strawberry Ensure and drank it down, her eyes never tearing away from Jasper's face.

Jazz shrugged. "She was quiet."

"Hmm," Alice said as she picked up her second Ensure. "Quiet could be intriguing."

I didn't find the new girl. Or well, I don't think I found the new girl.

I _did_ find that girl that stole the handicap spot. She was sitting a couple spaces down from Jessica Stanley – like she was sitting there out of obligation and not because she wanted to. She had a head of wavy, short brown hair that ended at her chin, which was tipped down as she poured over a notebook.

I felt myself blush out of anger at her. She wasn't _disabled_. At least, not enough to justify taking the last damn handicap space. and I tore my eyes away to my comp book, fighting the tickle in the back of my throat that threatened a coughing fit. I tried clearing it, feeling everything rattle in my chest. _Don't let it win._

"Are you going to group tonight?" Jasper asked Alice.

"Ugh," Alice groaned. "Yes. Although I don't know why. Group is so _depressing_."

"It's not that bad." I said between attempts of clearing my throat.

"It's _depressing_." Alice insisted, her emerald eyes rolling up. "'I gained three pounds this week!' 'I finished my antibiotics this week!' And I hate wearing a Vogmask." She pouted. "I only go because I know that Mom wouldn't let me do student government otherwise."

"You only go so you could hang out with _Jasper_." I argued.

She looked at Jazz, her eyes filling with hearts at her boyfriend. "Yeah."

I started to cough. I angled my head and coughed into the crook of my elbow so I didn't get it all over everyone's food. CF cough sounded like we were fighting horrible chest colds, the thick mucus that lined out lungs rattling as it came up. Alice handed me a tissue as I cleared my airways.

"Better?"

I nodded and fished my inhaler out of the front of my backpack, my breaths wheezy from CF's annoying cousin – asthma. "Yeah," I said as I sucked on it. _Two points for cystic fibrosis, zero for Edward._

I found the girl again. Her heart-shaped face was tipped up now and chocolate brown eyes wide on me. I felt the heat in my face – the third time today because of this girl – this time out of awkwardness. I tore my eyes away from her, but not before I noticed her blush too – embarrassed being caught staring.

 _Definitely not disabled._ I scowled at my comp book as I opened it to today. People with chronic illnesses didn't _stare_ at other people with chronic illnesses. There was, like, an unspoken rule about it, like when motorcyclists wave to each other on the road.

I took a note of my wheeziness in my comp book. _Three points for cystic fibrosis, zero for Edward._ I had to win against CF. I _had_ too. My life literally depended on it. I glanced up at the girl, who had gone back to pouring over her notebook and scowled again. And _she_ was messing it up.

"Edward," Alice said. I looked up to my sister and she smirked just slightly. "Eat your food."

* * *

We starting a unit on genetics in biology. I surmised this when I saw the picture of a Punnett square on Mr. Molino's PowerPoint that lit up the screen at the front of the class.

The science classroom didn't have desks. Instead there were black countertops that sat two each. I was the only one that had one to myself – everyone paired off with their friends and my only friends were in Spanish this period. Instead, I let my backpack occupy the seat, while the bag that held my portable concentrator hung off the back of my chair.

I was still coughing, which was annoying. Most teachers didn't mind when I got up and excused myself to hack up mucus in the hallway. Mr. Molino was the exception. He regarded me with slight, thinly veiled disdain whenever I had to get up. I couldn't read his thoughts, but his face told me that he thought me obnoxious and disruptive.

So, this period I held out and watched the clock until I could escape. I pulled out a travel-pack of tissues just in case and my afternoon Ensure.

The final bell rang and I watched our teacher leaned against his desk. "We are going to start genetics, today, folks." Mr. Molino said. "Genetics is the study of heredity or how we get the traits that make us us."

The door opened and we all turned to see who was late to class.

The handicap spot girl. The staring girl. The girl that was ruining my score for today. I felt myself blush in resentment at her.

She handed a paper to the teacher. From this distance, I could see she was wearing a pair of black jeans and a hole-y knitted sweater.

"Isabella Swan." Mr. Molino said as he slipped on his glasses to read the paper. "Nice of you to join us."

"Bella," She corrected, her fingers raking nervously through her chin-length brown hair. "And sorry." Her chin tipped down in shame.

"You can take a seat there in the front." He motioned to the only empty seat next to me. "Open your book to page one-eighty-three." He handed the page back to her.

I picked up my backpack and put it on the floor next to my leg and cleared my stuff to my side of the desk. _Of course she had to sit next to me._ I thought as I rolled my eyes. _How could this day get any worse?_

She sat down next to me, her brown eyes flashing at me. They were glass clear, so dark they were almost black and swirled with emotions like they were full of galaxies. On any other person, I would think they were pretty.

Instead, I tried to figure out what she had. Besides asshole-itis, obviously. She wasn't physically impaired – she had all of her limbs. She didn't use walking aids or oxygen, like me. She didn't limp or favor either of her sides.

And I suppressed the familiar tickle in my chest.

"Mendel studied trait inheritance – which is the pattern of how parents hand down traits to their children." Mr. Molino lectured.

I tried to drown it with my chalky-chocolate supplement drink, as I watched Bella out of the corner of my eye.

She had a notebook in front of her and her textbook, which she hadn't opened to the page Mr. Molino told her to. _Maybe she's deaf?_ But, that wouldn't justify a handicap space. She didn't take notes, though. She was drawing. I watched her sketch a hand holding a pencil on the top of her page. It was a good drawing, very realistic. With any other person, I would be impressed.

I coughed at that point - unable to suppress it anymore - and startled her.

"Gross." Someone snickered behind me.

I blushed, but not because of the comment behind me. I blushed because I made Bella's hand jerk, causing her to slice through her drawing with a black, graphite comet. She looked up at me, not with anger for ruining her drawing, like I was expecting, but with concern. Her eyebrows furrowed as she regarded me for a brief second, her eyes swirling with emotions.

I got myself under control and put my eyes on my desk, feeling bad. My annoyance and frustration against her was misplaced. I balled the tissue I had pulled out in my fist. And I was being unnecessarily petty and – I winced, when I realized that Alice was right - judgmental. She could've totally had something. Struggles didn't have to be apparent to be real. I was very conscious of that.

I think I was frustrated with myself, mostly. Frustrated with my sat score, despite my best efforts to keep myself healthy. Frustrated that I was having coughing fits all day. Frustrated for never catching a break, no matter how hard I tried. _Four for cystic fibrosis._ I tallied in my head. _Zero for Edward._

I caught something in the corner of my eye and I glanced over. Bella's hand was trembling. I only caught it for a second, as she dropped her pencil and banished it underneath the table. I felt myself bite my lip. _One for whatever that is, zero for Bella._

* * *

"I didn't have any classes with the new girl." Alice pouted as she slipped on her Vogmask – a reusable facemask that was tasked with filtering the air around us. Hers had pandas over it. I did the same, placing the elastic loops over my ears. Mine was plain black.

Our home away from home was the UWMC Cystic Fibrosis Clinic, affectionately referred to as just 'the clinic' since it was the only one of its kind in the area. It was where we met with our teams – a litany of different medical staff including doctors, nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, and dieticians - went to therapy, outpatient antibiotic treatments if necessary, did our check-ups and met with other CF-ers to share victories and support in defeats. Or something like that.

However, CF-ers couldn't be in close proximity to each other. We could potentially catch each other's infections. Hence the protective gear.

"I had one." I volunteered as I slipped on a pair of latex gloves. The masks were required, but the gloves were optional – unless you were on the lung transplant list, like I was.

"Is she intriguing?" Alice demanded, her green eyes flashing over the edge of her mask. "Edward, I _need_ to know."

"What does it matter?" I rolled my eyes at her as I opened the door that led into the lobby of the clinic. "You're not going to meet her today."

Bella _was_ intriguing. Especially after banishing her trembling hand to where it couldn't be seen anymore. She didn't draw for the rest of the period, instead focusing her eyes straight ahead, a line in-between them like she was deep in thought.

Alice made an exasperated noise. "It didn't say 'meet,' it said 'get to know.'"

I _technically_ didn't even meet her today. I thought I'd introduce myself on the premise that we were going to be lab partners for the rest of the semester, but she got up and sped out of class as soon as the bell rang.

"Hello, Alice! Edward!" Mary sang from behind the front desk.

"Mary," Alice sang back as she put her bony elbows on the counter. "I need pictures of that baby of yours."

Alice squealed over baby photos on Mary's phone and caught up for a second on how she was doing. She commented that Alice seemed to put on a few pounds and then turned to me.

"And what about you, Edward? Keeping healthy for those new lungs?"

"Doing my best." I said and adjusted my concentrator strap. "Is Emmett free at the moment?"

Mary glanced at her computer. "He is."

"Cool. Thanks." I started down the hallway – towards the physical therapy wing of the clinic.

I found Emmett – all two hundred eighty pounds of him – in the small gym, balancing on an exercise ball, a clipboard in his hand. He looked up when I entered. "Edward." He greeted. "How's it going?"

I shook my head. "Not good. My sats are dropping."

"Uh-oh." He said, his blue eyes widening in his face. "Have you done a PFT lately?"

I shook my head and sat on the table that dominated one side of the room. The other side was a treadmill and a bicycle machine and a bunch of mats for doing different exercises. "Not since my hospitalization last month. I'm hoping you would be free to do some CPT? I think it's just mucus."

"'course." He threw the clipboard onto his desk that sat in the corner and stood up.

I pulled off my strap and my mask. There were two physical therapists that work in the clinic, but I preferred Emmett. He was always in an infectiously good mood and his hands were big - making the pounding that I had to be subject to effective. I always felt good after physical therapy with him.

He handed me a basin to spit into and went to work, first grabbing my shoulder and vibrating me in an attempt to dislodge some of the sticky gunk that plagued my existence.

"It's been a moment since you've come and seen me." He laughed. "Deep breath in."

I sucked in as much air as I could, feeling my diaphragm contract. He started to pound on my back, with his hands that were slightly bent into cup-shapes. I started to cough as things were shaken loose inside of me.

"M-m-mom's been doing it, mostly." I said between coughs and spitting and breathing.

He laughed again. "Your mom's a gentle lady, though." He said as he increased intensity. "That may work on Alice, but your CF needs you to get _mean_."

I laughed as I imagined Emmett chasing the monster that was CF, Rambo-style. The blob monster running away from Emmett, who went in guns blazing, a scary, angry look on his face.

"Alright, lay down."

I laid on my back and he started doing the rhythmic pounding on my chest. "How's school."

"G-g-good." I said. "All As."

"How about girls?" He rolled me over and pounded on my side.

I was coughing too hard to answer him, unable to power my voice. I sat up to hack, watching a bunch of shit come up into the basin I was given.

"You can do better than that." Emmett said. "I've seen ketchup bottles with more movement."

"No girls." I managed as I laid back down after catching my breath. "Don't have time."

And the pool of girls who understand and accept something like CF was…shallow. I winced. I couldn't even make friends, really. Everyone looked at me with an unnamed emotion that was part pity over the coughing kid with oxygen, part gratitude that it was me suffering and not them, and a teensy bit of disgust because CF wasn't a pretty disease. I glanced at the basin that was filled with what looked to be a tiny swamp monster. _No, not pretty._

Emmett made a clicking noise as he rolled me over onto my other side. "There's _always_ time for girls."

"What about you and Rosalie?" I asked, eager to get the attention off of my non-existent love life. "How's that going?"

Emmett rolled his eyes. "I love her, I do. But, she's going through this keto thing and I want to _die_."

I laughed, dislodging some more stuff. "Jasper was complaining about that too."

"She's subjecting everyone to it." He shook his head as he pounded on me. "At least she isn't a vegetarian."

I coughed again and more stuff came up. I breathed in my airways, finally feeling cleared of the irritation that afflicted me. At least, temporarily. _One for Edward, finally._

"There we go." He cheered with an enthusiastic smile. "That's some movement."

"Only you would be happy about mucus." I joked and sat up.

He clapped me on the back, his blue eyes dancing. "It's a thing worth celebrating." He pulled a pulse oximeter and clipped it to my finger. "Let's take a look, shall we?"

I watched it read, sucking in a deep breath and then it flashed. 92%.

"What was it this morning?"

"Eighty-seven."

"Hey, that's some improvement."

"Yeah," I said, smiling wide. _Another score for me._


	2. Chapter 2

**_Bella_**

The guy next to me was staring at me. Or well, _glaring_ at me was more like it.

It was the same guy from the cafeteria. He was sitting with the really skinny girl with the black hair and the blond guy that was wearing cowboy boots. The guy with the oxygen.

The guy with the hands.

I had asked Jessica – this girl that had latched onto me in second period like I was some project that she didn't realize she needed until just then. I ignored her mostly. She was puddle-shallow and mostly talked about herself – about him.

"That's Edward Cullen." She said. "I have first period with him. He and his sister Alice," She pointed to the girl that was straddling the table's bench seat, one skinny leg curled to her chest. "have some sort of _thing_." She made a motion with her hands like conjuring up the name for this _thing_ was going to take more brain power than its worth. "It makes them cough or something. I don't know." She rolled her eyes. "The blond one is Jasper, Alice's boyfriend. He's a little weird. Like, does war-reenactments-on-the-weekend-weird." She made a noise. "It's like the island of misfit toys over there."

At that point, Edward coughed – a harsh, painful sounding noise – and of course my brain decided that it would be a good idea to stare at him.

And he stared back.

 _Come on brain._ I chanted to myself. _Don't look at him like that._

But, my brain had a mind of its own.

He blushed – darkening his pale face in a hue that was a couple shades lighter than his bronze hair - and broke eye contact. And I felt like a complete asshole.

And now he was glaring at me in biology. I felt my face heat up as I felt the lasers of his gaze on my skin, prickling it like I was being poked with a cactus. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at him – and his hard green eyes were staring at me like I was some sort of puzzle he couldn't figure out. Like I frustrated the hell out of him.

I went back to focusing on my drawing in front of me, my hand gliding over the page almost on its own. I was drawing his hand, holding his pencil.

Sometimes, he would drop it and reach for this bottle that had a picture of a milkshake on the front. Sometime it would go to his chest as he tried to clear his throat. Once, he laced them together on the table as a video on the history of genetics played on the PowerPoint.

I liked his hands. They were different. His last digits were wider than the rest of his fingers and he had a splotch of a birthmark that was in the shape of Ireland on one of them. They were dusted in freckles. Different.

He was different. I glanced at his face through my hair at his face. He had a nice jawline and nose. He was a little thin, but he had nice broad shoulders. And an excellent head of dark red hair. As someone who has lost all of her hair three times in her life, I had appreciation for hair.

I glanced at the oxygen around his face – a cannula that sat in his nose, connected to his portable concentrator that hung from the back of his chair. That made him different too. But, I didn't like dwelling on those differences.

I wished I knew what I did to make him so upset at me.

"Heterozygosity is the-,"

I blacked out for a split second and then blinked in confusion as I came to. My pencil was still on the page of my drawing, Mr. Molino further along in his sentence than what I expected. I grimaced at myself when I realized it was a seizure that caused me to space out. _Damn stupid brain-_

A sudden noise startled me. I jumped, my hand jerking across the page, digging into it and almost causing me to rip it. It took me a second to realize the noise was a cough.

I instinctually looked to my left and found Edward, the hand I was drawing holding a tissue to his mouth as he coughed into it. His shoulders hunched and popped like he was trying to force something up that didn't want to come up.

"Gross." Some obnoxious high schooler said behind us and I fought the urge to twist around and say something rude.

I also fought the urge to run my hand down Edward's back, in-between his shoulder blades – in comfort or help, I wasn't sure – but instead I watched him breathe in and out of the cannula in his nose as he got himself under control. His eyes glanced over to meet mine and he blushed and dropped them to the counter top.

His eyebrows furrowed as he kept his eyes trained on his notes, the tissue wadded in his hands and little coughs still popping his body in the seat.

I bit my lip and looked back down at my drawing. I realized that maybe he was glaring at me because he thought I would treat him like the kid behind us. I stifled a laugh. If he only _knew_ what I've been through. A teensy bit of coughing is like a skip through the meadows.

At the same time, I felt bad. Diseases shouldn't define people, but they did. And when you had a disease that people could see – a difference that marked you as imperfect – then it was _all_ people saw.

 _Maybe I could introduce myself?_ I thought. I wasn't looking to make friends this school year, being it was my last year on earth and all, but Edward seemed like the type of person that would be a good friend.

But then - like a cosmic sign sent from the gods – my field of vision was cut with a zig-zaggy, bright white light. _Shit._ All my muscles on my left side contracted through the partial seizure. I looked down and found my hand trembling on my notebook and I picked it up and put it under the table so Edward couldn't see.

I watched the clock, waiting for the period to end. With an aura, I knew that the partial seizure was just the opening act and that the worst was on its way. When the bell did ring, I jammed everything in my backpack and high-tailed it out of the class so I could get to my truck in time for the main attraction.

* * *

"You finish your homework?" Charlie asked as he jammed a chopstick into the container of moo goo gai pan.

"Yep." I said as I nibbled on some Asian-flavored broccoli.

"How many drawings did you do today?"

"Twenty-seven."

"Seizures?"

"Just one and half."

Charlie and I were eating takeout at our dining room set that only sat two. We still had some boxes to unpack still, but for the most part we were completely moved into our new place – this rental house that was built in the sixties. It was kind of cool – we didn't have any neighbors, instead surrounded by green forests. It was definitely an upgrade from our two-bedroom apartment in Olympia.

"How was your first day at school?" He asked.

I shrugged. "It was okay. I met some people."

"That's nice." He nodded, his eyes widening at me. We had the same set of eyes – brown discs that were slideshows of our inner thoughts. His glistened with slight, hesitant excitement. "Anybody worth your time?"

I shrugged again, my mind going to Edward. Suddenly, my takeout box of mixed vegetables seemed really interesting. "I don't know. I don't know if I was to waste the energy, you know?"

That disappointed Charlie. He was hoping that I would meet someone that would make me change my mind about refusing treatments. Someone to make me see that life was worth living again.

But, he didn't have to live a half-life where my brain misfired like a faulty car engine. And he didn't have to live through beating cancer three times only to relapse and start all over. He didn't face five to six seizures a day without medicine or needles in my leg or numbness in my feet.

Life _was_ worth living – if you didn't have a brain tumor ruining it.

I didn't tell him that, though. It sucked having a kid you know was going to bite it from cancer soon. He felt bad enough as it is.

Instead I excused myself from the table. "I'm going to go to UWMC." I announced as I tossed my food container in the trash.

"Jacob?" He guessed.

"Yep."

I went up the stairs to my room. I had covered almost every square inch of walls with pages of sketches and drawings and paintings in my old room.

I only had one up in my new room now – my drawing of Edward's hand holding a pencil. I had taped it a couple of feet over my pillow. Even though it was ruined, I still kind of liked it. It was like it was signed by him, somehow.

I put on my shoes and jacket, grabbed my laptop and my sketchbook and headed out to my elderly truck and drove the familiar route to the large, gray building that sat smack dab in the middle of Seattle, where I - unfortunately - had wasted a lot of my short life. I always cringed when I walked through the automatic doors and was hit in the face with the smell of hospital-grade antiseptic.

It was Movie Monday, though, and I couldn't disappoint my favorite osteosarcoma patient in all of the northwestern United States.

"Bells," Jacob hopped up and down in his vinyl lounger that matched the other twenty that sat in a lazy semi-circle formation in the outpatient chemo clinic that was hooked up to the main hospital. "Guess what?"

I looked at my friend of almost three years now – a tall, Native American with a lovely russet complexion. He had an Orioles ball cap covering his bald head and his arm ended under his elbow, right where cancer claimed his hand and most of his forearm. That's how cancer worked. It claimed pieces – arms, legs, brains – until there wasn't anything left to claim.

"What?" I asked and sat down at the chair the oncology nurses had ready for me, right next to his IV that had chemo dripping into his central line hooked into his chest.

"The annual salmon festival is this weekend." He said and showed me on his phone.

"That sounds ridiculous." I said, my eyes flashing at him and my smile creeping up on my face. "Let's go."

He grinned, his teeth white against his skin. "It looks absolutely random."

"More random than the Seattle nude bicycle races?" I asked and set my laptop on the roll cart in front of his chair.

"No, nothing tops that." He laughed.

I didn't make a bucket list. I didn't want to focus on the fact that I was dying or had a brain tumor or cancer in general, really. My last wish was to have a normal year – go to school, live life, and not think about the time bomb in my head. Jacob, as my best friend in the whole wide world, had decided that should include spontaneous weekend trips so he could bank memories for when I do actually kick the bucket. "I have to have a fire eulogy for you, Bella." He explained. "So, I have to have some _fire_ stories to go with it."

However, his condition made it difficult to do things outside the immediate area. So, we found local absurd, niche festivals and events and went to those.

I looked at my friend as he pulled off his ball cap and rubbed his bald head before replacing it, backwards. If I was going to miss anyone when I crossed to the other side, it was going to be Jacob.

"What are we watching?" He asked and picked up the DVD I had grabbed and then groaned. "Bella, we've already seen _50 First Dates_."

"I know." I said as I opened up to a clean page in my sketchbook. "I just like it."

"You just like Drew Barrymore's character." Jacob joked as he got the case open by setting it flat on the table and holding down the little finger nitch with his amputated arm and popping the cover up with his finger. He loaded the disc into the computer.

"Hey, she's beautiful _and_ brain damaged." I said with a grin. "I can relate."

"Beautiful and brain damaged." Jacob squinted. "Why does that sound like a name for a cologne?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but Jake doubled over the pink, mass-produced hospital bucket and noisily vomited the contents of his stomach into it. I put my hand on his shoulder as he spat and wiped his nose. "Gross." He groaned and then glanced up at the chemo bag.

"Chemo's a bitch." I empathized.

"Not even a hot one, either." He set his bucket on the table next to my laptop and started the movie, turning the volume to low so it wouldn't disturb the other cancer patients here to get their weekly dose of chemicals.

There was another reason I chose _50 First Dates._ I've seen it a million times and could focus on drawing while it played it in the background.

I started sketching Edward's hands again.

The act of drawing helped keep my misfiring brain from causing me pain – which usually shot down the left side of my body in needles. It also kept my compulsions at bay, keeping me from doing self-destructive behaviors like pulling my hair out or picking at my skin. It had something to do with synapses and the way my electrical processes talked to each other and how my multiple tumors over the years have ruined them and that's all I really knew.

This picture was big and took up the whole page. Edward's hands, laced together as they rested on the table.

"Hands?"

I looked up to Jacob, who had twisted in his seat to watch me draw. He always complimented on how talented I was. But, it wasn't talent. Before I was ten years old, I couldn't even draw a stick figure straight. _Practice_ is what made me good - practice against my own will.

"Yeah," I said as I bit on my lip. "This kid in my class that I sit next to in biology."

Jacob cocked his head. "How's that going by the way?"

I ran through my day in my head – uneventful up until fifth period. "Okay." I managed and shrugged.

"No boyfriends?"

I thought of Edward – his glare at me - and blushed. "No." I scowled. "You _know_ that." I used my finger to start smudging in the lowlights around his knuckles.

"Yeah." He said, his chin on his arm. He sighed. "I wish I could go back to school."

I patted him on the arm again. "You're not missing much."

He made a noise and turned, watching Adam Sandler make his way across the small screen. I watched his eyes go dark.

"What's wrong?" I stopped drawing.

"Did I tell you that they're talking about amputating my leg?"

I dropped my pencil and looked at him, taking in his high cheekbones and brown eyes that were so dark they were almost black. "What?"

His lips rolled into a pout. "Yep, right at the knee." He made a slicing motion across his right leg with his hand, over the black brace he wore around it. "I feel like the scarecrow from the _Wizard of Oz_. 'They tore my legs off and threw them over there!'" He quoted.

"I'm sorry, Jake." I said, my hand clasping with his.

"Yeah. 'tsucks." He said and tapped his toes on the tile floor. "I wish I could just say 'no' like you. You know? Just be…" He shrugged, his amputated arm coming up. "Done."

"No you don't." I said quickly. "Just because _I_ can't fight my cancer anymore, doesn't mean you can't fight yours."

We lapsed into silence for a moment. I watched Adam Sandler's character try to get Drew Barrymore's character to fall in love with him, only to wake up and do it again because her broken brain reset her at night. I felt my eyebrows furrowed. _Again and again and again._

"You can, you know." His eyes flicked to me.

"I can't," I shook my head. "and I won't and I'm not having this conversation." I let go of his hand and went back to my notebook.

"Alright." He said, knowing that I wasn't going to have this fight. _Again and again and again._ He grinned as he went back to the movie. "It can be your slogan, you know."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Bella," He turned back to me, his smile wide. "Beautiful _and_ brain damaged."

* * *

I grumbled as I made my way down the stairs on a quest for a cup of coffee, my anti-seizure meds and to tell Charlie good morning before he left for the day.

"Hey, Bells." Charlie was in his uniform, leaning against the counter, his coffee cup in one hand and his cell phone in the other – probably scrolling the news.

"Good morning." I muttered and then tripped, my foot and leg numb. Charlie went to catch me, but I got myself before I completely face planted. That would be fun – coming into school with a black eye. Wouldn't be the first time.

"Weakness?" Charlie asked.

"Numbness, actually." I said as I opened the fridge and pulled out the bottle of half n' half.

Charlie cleared his voice. "It snowed last night." He said. "I put chains on your tires, but _please_ be careful."

I looked at my dad as I poured myself a cup of coffee. "Yep. Sounds good."

"Doing anything this weekend with Jacob?"

"The Seattle salmon festival."

Charlie shook his head and sipped his coffee. "You kids find the craziest things, I swear."

"That's the point, Dad." I grinned at him. "The crazier, the _better_."

He put his cup in the sink. "I'm going to be working a little late tonight to cover for another officer. You okay for dinner on your own?" His eyes flashed with remorse. He hated spending more time at work than he had to, given that I had an expiration date now and all.

"Yep." I said as I fished my daily dose of Dilantin out of its bottle.

I waited until I heard Charlie's cruiser pull out of the driveway before heading back up the stairs to change. While I was on a quest to not let my brain tumor affect me – there were still some _things_ it had a say in. Showering while sitting on my shower chair was one in case I had a seizure.

The intermittent pain in my side was another – this sharp, shooty ache that encased the left side of my body. It felt like I was being pelted with a nail gun, but, like, on the _inside_. I fixed my hair with one hand and got dressed with one hand made my way back down the stairs, only to take some pain meds and pray that I would be okay by the time I got to school.

I drove to school in my elderly truck, gawking at the snow, which covered everything in a thick, soft blanket of white.

When I pulled in, I had an internal debate – handicap space or not? I had a placard because of my screwed up brain making it difficult to walk. I watched a kid slide on the ice, almost skidding himself into another car and decided that the handicap space would probably be best to save myself from an early demise. For today, at least.

I pulled into the last space, watching a flash of red and black in front of me.

Edward and his sister and friend were playing with snowballs. He had a big smile over his face, which hitched up higher on the right than the left. He was smacked with a snowball right against the side of his head, and I watched his eyes scrunch close with his laugh.

The stopped when the slight girl, Alice, put her hands to her face and coughed. I watched him shake the snow out of his hair before before turning to the blonde guy, his crooked grin still wide and his green eyes flashing.

I killed my engine and picked up my placard and hung it from my rearview mirror. I stomped my left foot to shake the pins and needles out of it and then let myself out of my car.

The ground _was_ slippery. I made a mental note to thank Charlie for putting on the chains later and carefully made my way to the front of the school, my hand gripping my truck. I got to the sidewalk and stepped up.

I happened to look up at the same time I stepped up and locked eyes with Edward's jewel-colored ones. The smile had slipped off his face and his eyebrows were furrowed, like he was concerned over me, even though we hadn't even spoken one word to each other yet.

For a split second – one brief flash – I saw a different future than the one that was written for me. I saw myself standing on the edge of the cliff, the wind whipping through my hair as I watched the ocean below me – a swirling pool of gray and green and blue. I saw the sun setting, a warmth in my chest knowing that I had a thousand sunsets to look forward to.

And I saw Edward next to me.

And in that brief second, a swirl of regret churned in my stomach. _It's not too late._ A voice said in my head. _You can fight it._

But, then I crashed back to earth like the Apollo 13 with a hard reality check in the form a hard spasm in my leg and I blushed. _Hard_. I raked my hair out of my face, grazing over the scars on my head from my many surgeries.

I tore my eyes away from Edward's and walked towards my first building, knowing the ending to my story was already written.

* * *

 **So, fair warning: this story is going to be sad af. Be ready to cry. Also review. Thanks.**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Edward_**

It had snowed overnight, blanketing the small town of Forks in a couple of inches of white. The sun that fought through the clouds illuminated it, turning it opalescent. It was beautiful. I sucked a deep breath in as I took it all in. _Beautiful._

I felt a snowball hit the back of my head and turned to Jasper and Alice, both of their hands filled with snowballs. They threw them at me, hitting me in the chest and the shoulder.

"Guys," I groaned and flicked snow off of my shirt.

"Oh, lighten up." Alice said as she packed another snowball in her hands.

"We're going to be all wet and cold for first period." I balked, looking around the front of the school for hiding spots to get away from them.

She threw it anyway and it hit me in the face, her wind-chime giggle filling the air around us, her green eyes the same shade as the evergreens that corralled the school.

 _Fine._ I bent down - my concentrator strap threatening to tumble off my arm – and gathered a handful of slushy snow. I packed it into my fists and threw it at Alice. She nimbly avoided it and I watched it crash into the side of the admin building. Jasper got her though – a snowball hitting her square in the chest. She shrieked.

We hurled snowballs at each other, missing more than we got - laughing the whole time. A coughing fit from officially Alice ended our game. I sucked in deep breaths of my own – in through my nose and out of my mouth, attempting to keep my heart rate down.

A rumble caused me to turn and I watched Bella roll into the last handicap space again and then affixed the placard on the rearview mirror. A tinge of guilt flashed through me for thinking all those horrible things about her yesterday.

I watched the slight girl step her way out, her feet cautious on the slippery asphalt. She used the front of her car – one hand on the hood to hold herself up.

And then when she got to the sidewalk, I could see that she was favoring one side, her steps rolling with a slight limp.

 _Edward, you're such an asshole._

Bella's wide brown eyes flashed up to me and they froze when they met mine. I watched them tighten and swirl with a bunch of emotions and her face blush red out of embarrassment. She raked her fingers into her chin-length hair and watched her feet as she shuffled towards the fine arts building.

I felt myself bite my lip as I followed her with my eyes. Besides the remorse of being so hypercritical of a person I didn't even know, I felt something else. _Empathy?_ No, it went deeper than that. I think.

"It's the new girl!" Alice clapped with enthusiasm and she started to march, her backpack slapping against her bottom towards Bella. "I'm going to introduce myself."

I whipped around, catching my sister. "Alice," I intercepted her. "No."

"What?" Alice said. "She's _new_. She's going to need _friends_. She looks like the perfect friend." Alice clapped her hands. "A spoonie - like us!"

"Let her be." I said, firmly. I didn't like the way Alice looked at her – like a project or a pet she was going to dress up.

Alice's eyes flashed angrily at me. "You can't tell me what to do."

"I can tell you that you're not going to berate the new girl into being your friend." I retorted, my face flushing red with anger.

"It's okay, Al." Jasper said, eager to smooth out our arguments before they erupted into a full-on fight. Alice and I shared everything – including our short fuses. "She looks like she wasn't in the mood."

Alice's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Fine," Her fist came up and she coughed into it. "But, I am going to be her friend." She brightened between coughs. "My horoscope says so."

I rolled my eyes. "You're ridiculous."

The first bell bonged through the school, signaling that everyone had five minutes to get to class. I turned and started for the math building. I felt a snowball hit me in the back of the head and turned around to Alice, who coughed into her elbow before flashing a wicked grin at me. "Ha," Alice said. "Got you."

* * *

I spent my next periods thinking about Bella.

Which was weird, because I usually just took notes, attempted to suppress coughing, and zoned out - fantasizing about all the things I was going to do when I got my new lungs.

I had a list in the back of my comp book, actually - 'My Reverse Bucket List' - All the things I couldn't do now, but could once my life officially started. I wanted to hike to the top of Rainier and do a triathlon and do a hundred laps up and down the bleachers. I was going to hug every single person in my CF group as tightly as I could for as long as they'd let me. I was going to burn my Vest and stomp on my nebulizer and throw my portable concentrator off the top of the space needle.

I flipped through it now, familiar feelings of melancholy looping through me as I read off my three-page list. But, instead of just imagining myself doing all these things, I imagined myself and Bella - with her mysterious affliction – doing them together.

My forehead crumpled in confusion and I tore my eyes away from my book to glance out my window of my third period. I haven't even said hello to her and yet I was desperately curious about her. I was curious about the swirling emotions in her dark brown eyes. I was curious about her art. I was curious as to why I felt like I kind of knew her already.

I flipped to yesterday's page. To my one-liner than summarized the day – _Never judge a book by its cover; for inside those pages there's always something new to be discovered._

I didn't take interest in other people. I couldn't. I didn't have the energy or the resources or the _time_. Time, especially. It was a finite commodity. I had _me_ to think about and I was a full-time job.

 _And yet…_

And yet, when I got to lunch I found myself scanning the room for her. I found her in the same position as yesterday – about three feet away from Jessica Stanley, her body hunched over her sketchbook. She had her fingertip running over her page, her eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated hard.

I also found Alice, shoveling lasagna into her face as quick as she could, her eye glued to her cell phone.

"You're going to give yourself heartburn eating that fast." I said and sat down in front of her. "Where's Jasper?"

"He's meeting with JROTC group." Alice said and popped up. "And I have to meet with student government. I have to plead the case that whoever thought of the 'under the sea' theme for the girls' choice dance should be quartered and burned."

She yanked out her insulin pump meter and pressed a couple of buttons before exiling it back to her bra and then stood up and grabbed her Ensure and her bag.

I swallowed my enzyme pill before picking up my fork to my own lunch. "Well, I'll see you around, then?"

"Yeah," She nodded. "Sorry to dine and dash, broski."

I was left alone. I pulled out my comp book and wrote down my lunch, scraped off most of the red sauce of my own lasagna to help prevent heartburn later and picked at it, separating the layers and then cutting the noodles into long strips.

I wasn't really hungry, but I had three thousand calories to consume today, not counting the G-tube feedings. I had six more pounds to gain to get back to my pre-hospitalization weight. Six more pounds to cut out the G-tube feedings altogether. One more thing to check off of my list of things to do to keep myself healthy in preparation for my new lungs.

I scowled at my lunch and pressed my face into my fist. I didn't take interest in people because CF ran my life, and CF said I couldn't have friends.

Even when I wanted them.

I looked up to Bella, her eyes on me. Her eyes were swirling with emotions again, her cheeks tinged pink.

I suddenly felt very conscious of myself. My fingers went to my cannula in my nose. I was so used to it that unless it was bothering me, I didn't even pay attention to it. But now, I felt like it was on fire, burning white hot right on top of my cheeks.

I blushed hard and got up from my dissected and uneaten lunch. It wasn't good that I didn't eat, but I wanted to get out from underneath the gaze of her gigantic eyes. Away from her scrutiny. Which was ridiculous. _What would she be scrutinizing?_

I dumped my tray and headed for the boys' room – the one in the math and science building so I knew it would be empty at this hour. I splashed water on my face and then inspected my reflection.

I inhaled through my nose and out of my mouth and then coughed. I had green eyes. I always got nice compliments on my green eyes, but I wasn't really paying attention to my good traits. I instead ran my fingers through my unkempt, hair that was neither red nor brown and fingered my acne that bloomed around the tubing on my face.

I coughed hard and spat in the sink, turning the water on and watched the mucus swirl away down the drain. _What would she be scrutinizing?_ I looked up and scowled, watching my reflection becoming the mask of disgust. _A lot. She would be scrutinizing a lot._

* * *

I got to science class way before the final bell was set to ring. Bella was already at our table, pouring over her drawing. I glanced at it. More hands – except these had their fingers laced together like they were praying. She used the tip of her finger to smudge the graphite, turning the lines into shadows, making the hands three dimensional. They were so real, they popped out of the page.

I pulled my chair out and sat down. "That's a nice drawing." I said quietly after clearing my voice.

She jumped – the second time I've startled her in two days – and looked at me, her eyes bewildered and full of questions. "Th-thanks." She stammered and glanced back down at her page like she was seeing it for the first time, like she just didn't just spend her last hour working on it.

"I'm Edward." I introduced as I set my concentrator on the back of my chair and my backpack at my side "Uh, Edward Cullen."

She pushed her hair out of her face, her eyes filling with incredulity. I was confused momentarily, but then guilt twisted my insides when I realized why she was looking at me like that. I literally spent the whole class yesterday glaring at her. "Bella Swan." She finally allowed.

"Did you just move to Forks?" I tried rebuilding the relationship that I had ruined before it had even began. _Good job, moron._ I chastised myself.

She paused and squinted at me like she was unsure if I was real or not. "Um, yeah." She said finally. "My dad took a job with the police force."

"Cool." I nodded. "We moved here last year."

The bell rang, signaling the beginning of class and the end of our conversation.

Mr. Molino asked questions with his 'engagement ball' - this tiny toy soccer ball that sat on his desk. He paced up and down between the counters. "After yesterday's lecture, who can tell me what homozygosity is?" I watched him toss it to Mike Newton.

"When an organism receives the same alleles?" He answered and tossed the ball back.

"And what is an allele?" He tossed the ball to the other side of the room.

"A form of a gene."

"Good job." Mr. Molino got the ball back. "And what is heterozygosity? Bella?"

Bella didn't react to her name, instead she was staring at a spot over her notebook, her eyes blank and unfocused, her mouth slightly open. Mr. Molino didn't wait for her to respond before throwing the engagement ball. It bounced off of her shoulder and flew up.

I stood and grabbed it before it could hit the floor. At the same time, Bella blinked and looked around, confusion swirling in her deep eyes.

"Heterozygosity is when an organism gets two different alleles." I answered and threw the ball back.

"Is your name Bella?" Mr. Molino asked me.

Someone snickered behind me as I dropped my eyes to the black top of the desk.

Our teacher before snapped his eyes to my partner. "You with us, Bella?"

Her face went crimson and she glanced at me before clearing her voice. "Yeah," She said. "I'm good. Sorry."

"Alright," Mr. Molino said. "Let's get to today's lecture."

I kept my eyes on Bella for the first part of the lecture, concerned filling me up. She pushed her sketchbook away and picked up her pencil, dutifully taking notes. The blush never left her face.

I went to my notes when I assumed she was okay. I busied myself between note taking and my supplemental shake, which I had to drink since I didn't eat lunch.

Until I heard her pencil hit the table. I looked over and watched her hand tremble like it did yesterday. She hid it under the desk again, but it was affecting her whole arm. She hunched over, trying to hide it.

I flipped to a clean piece of paper of my notebook and ripped it out. _You okay?_ I wrote down and slid it over to her.

I watched her face turn a shade that rivaled raspberry jam. She looked up at me and nodded, her glass clear eyes swirling with emotions. They were full of mortification, but there was something else behind them. _Sadness?_

I wondered, of course, what was wrong with her. But beyond that, there was something more. Secrets. Her eyes swirled with them. She had a lot of secrets. She was a steel trap of them, locked behind her chocolate brown eyes.

Mr. Molino ended the lecture a bit earlier so we could copy down the homework assignment that he had written on the board.

"Thanks for covering for me." Bella whispered.

"No problem." I said.

I waited for the explanation: _I space out sometimes. I have an auditory processing disorder. I can't hear out of my right ear._ I don't know. _Something_. I did it all the time: 'Sorry for the cough. I have a thing that messes with my lungs.'

But, she offered no explanation. The puzzle that was Bella Swan continued to knot up on itself. Instead I watched her sign her name – her hands not trembling anymore – at the bottom of her sketch and then rip it out and hand it to me.

"It's for you." She said. "As a thank you."

"Oh," I said and blushed. "You should keep it." I tried to hand it back. "It's your work."

"No, I want you to have it." Her head tipped, her short brown hair falling. "And besides, they're _your_ hands."

"What?" I picked up the drawing and inspected it. Sure enough, she captured my birthmark on my pointer finger and the signature clubbing – where my fingertips were kind of flat and slightly wider than the rest of my fingers - that was associated with CF.

"Your hands." She repeated, her eyebrows furrowing delicately. "I like your hands. They're different."

I blushed harder. _They're diseased_. I corrected for her in my head.

She held out her own hand – white and fragile. "I like hands." She said, her eyes softening as she inspected her own. It started to tremble again and she put both of them under the table.

"Well," I said and slipped the drawing into my comp book. "I don't mind being your hand model."

She smiled, her eyes crinkling around the edges. "Oh, I know." She flipped the page of her sketchbook, revealing a page of different sketched hands in different positions – holding a pencil, wrapped around my Ensure bottle, flat on the table, resting on top of each other and then, finally, balled in a fist in front of my lips as I coughed into it.

I tore my eyes away from the page, especially on that last sketch. "Those are really good."

"Thanks." She said and closed her sketchbook, her eyes going sad. "I actually really hate drawing." The corners of her mouth pitched down. "Like, _really_ hate it."

 _Then_ _why_ …? My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. But before I could ask, the bell rang and Bella got up and rushed out of the class again, her stuff against her chest, her limp a little more pronounced than it was this morning.

* * *

"Edward," Mom asked, completely cutting off Alice, who was on this fifteen-minute tirade on the injustice of only having shampoo in the school locker room showers and not shampoo _and_ conditioner. "Are you feeling well?"

I had been pushing around my peas on my plate, hiding them in my mashed potatoes. This would be my second meal today that I wouldn't complete. I grimaced. That meant two cans of liquid supplement through my G-tube tonight. "Yeah," I answered. "I'm okay."

I had spent my last period staring at the drawing Bella gave me, comparing it to my own hands. It was incredible how many details she captured – the lines my hangnail on my thumb and my freckles that dusted over my complexion. I wondered how she could study my hands so closely to get so many details correct.

I had also been trying to decipher her and failing. It was frustrating me. Every one of her responses were enigmatic, unexpected. _Mysterious._

It was putting me in a bad mood.

"Edward?" I felt a hand on my arm.

I looked up to my mother. She had honey colored hair and green eyes and then to my father, who was blond-haired that was finger combed to the side, his tie loose around his shirt. They both regarded me with concern.

Alice just rolled her eyes and snorted. "He's _fine_."

"I'm okay." I nodded, trying to squash their worry. "Just school stuff."

"Is there something wrong with the food?"

"No, Mom." I said. "It's great. I have heartburn from lunch. It's killing my appetite."

"Are you taking your Prilosec?"

"Yeah," I said, not really wanting the third degree. "I am. I'm okay. I _promise_."

"Okay," Mom nodded. "I just want to make sure you're not getting sick-,"

I banged my fist on the table, causing Alice and Mom to jump. "I don't," I went back to pushing food around on my plate. "I don't want to talk about CF."

We lapsed into silence – even Alice, whose eyes were going back and forth between the three of us. I felt a little guilty - they were just concerned over me. Especially Mom, whose full-time job was being our nurse/nutritionalist/respiratory therapist on top of being our mother. But, at the same time, we could start a conversation on the instability of the Syrian government and it would, somehow, loop around to CF. And I wasn't in the mood tonight.

"We should do a movie night." Dad said to diffuse the tension. "Since it snowed. You know, keep up the family tradition."

"That would be fun." My mother smiled. "We haven't done that in awhile."

Alice snorted. "Yeah, because we're seventeen. Not _seven_."

"You're never too old for a good movie night." Our father argued. "Is there anything good in the theaters right now?"

"Can I be excused?" I asked and started to stand up.

"Edward," My mother said, but I was already in the kitchen, rinsing off my plate to put it in the dishwasher and then moved to the stairway. I didn't really wear oxygen on the lower level of our house, since we didn't have a second concentrator. So, stairs were slow-going so I didn't have heart palpitations.

I got to my room, hooked myself up to oxygen, and sat down at my desk, pulling out my comp book. I only ate like fifteen hundred calories today. I scowled. I was so wrapped up in figuring this girl out, that I was forgetting to take care of myself.

I pulled the drawing out and inspected it for the hundredth time today, knowing that the real reason I was so upset was this damn, mysterious girl coming in and wrecking everything. I didn't feel compelled to be anyone's friend before her. I was fine with my sister, who understood what I was going through and myself.

But, she was a puzzle – this damn equation to solve. It was frustrating how absorbed I was becoming of her. And I didn't even really, like, _like_ her. At least, I didn't know her enough to form an opinion on her.

And yet, I had so many questions.

I scowled at the drawing. I didn't _need_ this distraction right now. I didn't need this person to come in and rock my boat. I had too many plates spinning as it is.

I crumpled the drawing and let it fall into the waste basket next to my desk and started my homework, pushing Bella out of my mind completely, deciding to not dwell on her anymore.

I was halfway through the chapter questions for world history when Alice made her presence known by coughing in my doorway.

I looked at her – she was dressed for bed now in shorts and a t-shirt that hung off of her toothpick frame. I could see her insulin pump hooked on the edge of her waistband.

"What?" I asked.

"My twin telepathy is tingling." She put her fingers on her temples, her grin on her face. "It says you might be PMS'ing."

I rolled my eyes and started to push the door closed. "Goodnight, Alice."

"Wait," She groaned. "I have a question."

"Can't you see that I'm busy?" I shot her a look.

She skipped into my room anyway, which looked like a music store and respiratory therapist's office got together and procreated. I had my beloved stereo and record player set up in the corner that was always littered with new music. And my keyboard. And then, like abstract design pieces strategically placed around my room, different medical equipment that was designed to keep me going.

I watched her sit on my bed. She pulled Griffin, my elderly lion stuffed animal that I had since I was a baby from his place on my headboard and threw him up in the air.

" _Alice_." I groaned. "Don't you have someone else to annoy?"

"I really just want to know what's got you in such a bad mood." She said and spun Griffin around by his arm, her ankles crossing.

"I've been fine."

"You didn't say one word during group last night." She said. "You're usually the first to volunteer your wins."

"I didn't have any wins to volunteer." I muttered.

"That's never stopped you before."

"I've just been distracted lately." I said, my eyes darting to my waste basket, Bella's doe-like brown eyes filling up my head.

" _Edward Cullen_? Falling off the straight and narrow?" She gasped with mock horror. "But what about your new lungs?"

I felt the heat bloom into my face and I twisted back to my desk, to my open comp book. "It's not going to happen again."

"I'm just joshing you, baby brother." She smiled and I rolled my eyes at her. We were _eight_ minutes apart. "You know, you can not think about CF for like two minutes and still be okay to get new lungs."

"No," I argued, feeling my choler rise. " _You_ can not think about CF. If I do that, I wind up with an infection and bumped off the transplant list." _And then it would win._

She couldn't argue because she knew it was true. She may have had cystic fibrosis-related diabetes and her pancreas hated her, but _I_ was the worst of the pair. She lapsed into silence for a second. "Is it that girl?"

I squirmed in my chair, my eyes going to my trash can again. I could see the wadded drawing sitting on top. "No." I said firmly and then coughed into my arm.

"Alright," She said. "I'm just asking. Don't get your panties in a knot."

I heard her get to her feet and she came over to my desk, propping her hip on it.

"You _need_ some distraction, Edward." She finally said, her thin arms crossing. "It's healthy."

I looked at the waste basket again, to the drawing. _Not for me it isn't._

* * *

I woke up coughing. Which wasn't unusual, but, the constant tickle in my chest had morphed overnight into drowning-in-my-own-body-fluids level of congested, my lower lungs feeling tight like they had been cut off with rubber bands.

And even after my airway clearance treatments with my Vest, I still felt like shit. My heart going back and forth between normal and racing. I didn't even bother with my pulse oximeter. I knew it wasn't going to be good.

I used my nebulizer and _finally_ felt a little more human and not a vessel for mucus and malfunctioning lungs. However, I was _still_ coughing.

I wanted to go to school, though. I had a test today in Spanish, for one. But – embarrassingly - I wanted to see Bella again. Even after I had firmly made up my mind that I wasn't going to let her distract me, I was still _worried_ about her. Her and her mysterious affliction. I wanted to protect her. Which was absurd, since whatever was wrong with her was inside of her.

I coughed all the way down the stairs, hard enough to make my chest hurt and hard enough to draw the attention of Mom.

"Are you okay?" She asked, completely turned around from the dinner she was loading into the crockpot on the counter, her green eyes wide on me.

"Yeah," I said and sat down and then proceeded to cough hard enough to displace something, my shoulders hunching over.

Alice rolled her eyes and pushed her napkin towards me. "You know what our horoscope says today?" She read off of her phone. "'Don't be surprise if your rug is pulled out from under you.'"

I rolled my eyes as I hacked mucus into the napkin. "Ominous."

We went to school and I took the last handicap space, feeling winded just walking from the parking lot into my first period classroom. I managed to trudge through my first classes, but as the day progressed, I became more and more breathless and my coughing got worse.

 _Please don't be an infection._ I chanted to myself as I used up the last of my travel pack of tissues on my way to lunch.

"You don't sound good." Alice said as I planted myself at our lunch table.

"I think it might be an exacerbation." I said and coughed.

"You should call Mom." Alice said.

"I'm okay." I said.

I looked for Bella. I felt my eyebrows furrow when she wasn't in her normal spot – three feet down from Jessica Stanley.

" _Edward_ ," Alice groaned.

I started scanning around the cafeteria, my searching becoming almost frantic. _Is she okay?_ I started imagining the worst. What if she had an accident or something? What if she spaced out at the top of the stairs and fell?

"Edward." Alice repeated, but I ignored her.

I finally found her. She was sitting alone at an empty table on the other side of the room. Instead of drawing, she had a novel in one hand and a french fry in the other. I felt a breath of relief _whoosh_ out of me. _She was okay._

I felt my eyebrows furrow. I wasn't going to let her distract me. And yet, here I was looking for her, needlessly worrying over her. I doubled over with a hard cough and watched a tissue vaporize in front of my eyes in time for me to grab it and hack into it.

"Edward," Alice said. "You _need_ to call Mom."

I nodded, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. I pressed my own hand to my head. I wasn't running a fever, I don't think, which was good. _Just an exacerbation._ I thought, but still grimaced. I hoped it wasn't a bad one, so I wouldn't have to be hospitalized. I pulled out my cell phone and navigated to Mom's contact.

"Hello?"

"Mom," I said and then coughed. "Can you make me an appointment at the clinic? I think I need to be seen."

"Yeah, honey, of course." She said. "Are you coming home?"

"Yeah," I said and glanced at Bella, whose eyes were still buried in her book. "I'm leaving now."

* * *

 **Yo, friends, read and review and stuff.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Bella**

Edward wasn't in science class.

I saw him at lunch. I know I did. And I heard him.

Coughing.

I glanced at the empty seat to my left, my eyebrows furrowing. He was coughing _hard_ during lunch – these wet-sounding, rattling deep-chest coughs. Like his lungs were more fluid than they were organs. It was troubling.

And at lunch, while I read my Tom Clancy novel, I kept looking around to see if I was the only one who even noticed, even paid attention to the fact that Edward didn't sound good. They didn't, of course. Everyone probably ignored him on purpose. _Bastards._

Mr. Molino called Edward's name while he took attendance, glanced at the empty seat when no one answered, and then marked down his absence. Again, no one seemed to care or notice him missing. I frowned at the empty seat again, concern looping through me. _Is he okay?_

I planned on asking him if he needed anything. As a payback for covering me during my absence seizure the day before. But, he didn't show up to class.

My hand glided over my sketchbook as I vaguely paid attention to my drawing while I fretted over a person I didn't even know. I was sketching out his eyes. They weren't as pretty in gray graphite and charcoal pencil than they were in real life. But, I drew them anyway.

My sketchbook was slowly becoming an ode to the many planes and lines of Edward Cullen's person. I don't know why my brain decided that he should be the subject of fixation. Another rusty piston misfiring I assumed.

I stopped and grimaced at myself. I didn't even _know_ Edward and I was obsessing over him like he was my friend. More than that. Like, he was my _boyfriend_. Disgust flipped my stomach. Boyfriends and romance and love were for people who had lives worth living, whose existences were plagued by misery and cancer. I very thoroughly _did not_ have one of those.

I consciously skipped to a clean page and started sketching out an inanimate object – a sunflower. I _loved_ sunflowers.

However, I kept glancing to my left, expecting Edward to be there and was disappointed when he wasn't. Slightly anxious too. _Was he okay?_ He was sitting with his sister, who coughed like he did, so I assumed they had the same _thing_ , whatever that thing was. And she didn't look too concerned over Edward's increased intensity of coughing. Actually, he left the lunch room and she went right back to her cell phone.

Well, he's gotta be okay then, right? I tried convincing myself. Maybe he had a scheduled appointment or something?

I internally groaned. I was doing it again. Obsessing. _Stop it, Bella._ I chastised myself as I went back to my drawing my sunflower. I frowned when I flipped back to his half-finished eyes. But, I didn't fight my brain again. There was no use.

Edward was absent all week.

I started to freak out a little. I mean, obviously if he was out and his sister wasn't, there was something wrong? _Right_? And why was _I_ the only who seemed to notice? Everyone else continued their days like everything was normal. Mr. Molino kept calling Edward's name and then marking him absent. He was an afterthought.

I wanted to ask about him, distractedly curious. His sister still came to school – her petite frame would be pressed up against her boyfriend as they ate lunch together at their usual table.

But, every time I tried to approach her in the hallway between classes or in the lunch, something stopped me. _You don't know him._ _You just sit next to him for one period a day. You've had one whole conversation with him. You're not his friend. You're barely an acquaintance._

 _Stop being nosy._

Nosy. Was I being nosy? I hated it, absolutely _loathed_ it when other people were nosy about me. When I would walk through somewhere with half my head shaved and a stitched up scar cutting a jagged line against my skull from a recent surgery. Or when I would limp because I lost feeling in my foot. Or the rash that would radiate past my hairline from radiation therapy. And people would stare or ask questions or make comments, like I didn't already realize I was a blazing neon sign for affliction.

So, when I would see Alice, I stopped myself because I didn't want to be that person. I didn't want to be that person that saw illness before the human. I assumed that he knew how to take care of himself.

It didn't stop the worry, though.

When I got anxious, my drawings grew more frequent and I found myself drawing things that were generally calming – bird feeders and butterflies and flowers. Drawing Edward made me anxious about him and my brain didn't like that. I didn't want to be anxious about him. It caused me pain. I also did not care to draw things that belonged on the front of Hallmark cards. It made me cringe a little when I busted out a dragonfly, knowing I just wasted my time drawing a freaking dragonfly.

But, that's what I did – drew girly things and oscillated between concern and disgust over obsessing over a boy I didn't even know, hoping that he would magically show back up to school so I could just put it to rest.

I was in the lunch room, sketching out a monarch butterfly when a felt a presence in front of me.

I looked up to a pair of jewel-green eyes and jumped, startled. For a second, I thought I got my wish – that Edward was back. But, then I connected the eyes to the face they were in – angular, delicate and framed by a head of short, pixie-length box-dyed black hair.

"Hey!" She greeted, her eyes flashing eagerly and she smiled big. Hers wasn't crooked liked Edward's. "Sorry to startle you there."

I felt my eyes widen in disbelief. All week I had tried to get myself to talk to her and now she had just delivered herself in front of me. _Could she, like, read minds or something?_ "H-hi." I stammered and ducked my head.

"I thought, since we were both sitting alone for lunch we could sit together." She was weirdly, overly chipper. Excited. Her voice was slightly hoarse too, like she just spent the last ten minutes shouting at the top of her lungs. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah," I said and pushed my backpack, which I had thrown on the table over. "Sure."

"I'm Alice." She introduced.

"Bella."

I watched her pull out an insulin pump from her bra and click a couple of buttons on it and then she fished out a bottle of pills and took one, washing it down with an Ensure. She did it ritualistically - like Christians saying grace over their food.

"I like your drawing," She said, once she picked up her fork.

I glanced down at my half-finished butterfly. "Thanks."

"You're really talented."

"It's not talent." I assured. "Just practice."

"Are you from around here?" She asked as she dug into her food – which consisted of two burgers and a thing of French fries. I wondered for a second how someone so thin could eat so much.

"Olympia." I said and rested my face on my hand. "Well, sort of. My Dad's a cop, so we've moved all over." _Always within an arm's distance of the UWMC, though._ I thought and grimaced a little.

She nodded. "We're from Seattle, but my brother, Edward, couldn't take the smog anymore, so we moved out to the boonies. We just started here at Forks last year."

I opened my mouth to ask about Edward's condition, but felt it clamp shut. _Don't be nosy._ I looked around the room for a topic that wasn't her brother and my eyes landed on a distant poster for the girls' choice dance that was scheduled a couple of weeks from now. "Are you going to the dance?"

"Girl," She snapped her fingers and grinned. "I _run_ the girls' choice dance."

I laughed at her and she laughed too - a slightly hoarse, high sound. Like wind chimes that happen to also be smokers.

"What about you?"

"Oh," I felt myself blush a little. "I don't know anyone in this school to ask, so probably not."

"You should come anyway. It'll be fun." She said, and then her eyes flashed like she just thought of something. "What's your zodiac sign?"

"I'm a Virgo."

Alice nodded. "Obsessive, slightly compulsive, altruistic, logical." She said, her eyes scrutinizing me. "I can see that."

"What about you?"

"Edward and I are both Geminis." She grinned. "Twinsies."

"Edward's your twin?" I asked, the words popping out of me. I didn't even think that he could be a twin.

She rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately," She flashed a wicked grin and put her hand under her chin. "Do you know him?"

"He's, um, my lab partner in biology fifth period." I said, feeling heat light up my face – which was always deathly pale no matter how many hours I would sit in the sun.

A small smile flitted over her face. "Well, when he gets out of the hospital, we should all hang out together."

A shot of alarm struck me like lightning. "Hospital?" I squeaked. "He's in the…hospital?" I don't know why I was so surprised. The boy wore _supplemental oxygen_ , for petessakes.

She made a noise of dissension. "Yeah, they had to install a PICC because they started him on vanc for MRSA and he always reacts badly the vanc." She rolled her eyes. "In my opinion, I think he's just being a big baby about it because _I've_ been on vanc before and it's not _that_ bad. Like, the Red Man's can be a little bad, but it's really nothing to boohoo over, you know? Oh, and his heart - 'Gotta watch the PH.' He just has a way of throwing everyone into a tizzy, because when it rains, it _definitely_ pours with Edward." She threw her hands in the air and scoffed. "Big _baby_."

I blinked through Alice's tirade, comprehending almost zero of what she said. "Is he…" I started, my fingers wringing together as anxiety flashed through me again. "…going to be okay?"

Her eyebrows furrowed at me like she just realized something. "Oh, yeah. It's just an exacerbation." She shrugged and coughed in her arm. "They happen sometimes."

"Well, I'm glad that it's not anything to worry over." I felt my eyebrows furrow, my stomach still in knots. _Edward was in the hospital?_

Alice put her finger to her chin. "If it turns into an infection that could be bad."

"Why?" I blurted automatically. _Stop it, Bella._ I said, a note of regret singing through me. _You're being nosy._

"A bunch of things." She said. "The most important is being knocked off the lung transplant list. So cross your fingers for him." She said, her slender fingers crossing.

"I'll definitely do that." I said and glanced at my drawing, my stomach flipping like double-dutch ropes as everything bounced in my head like bingo balls.

* * *

"Earth to Bella?" Jacob said, his stub arm waving in my face. "Is this a seizure or are we just zoning out?"

I blinked, once and then twice. I didn't have confusion, so it wasn't a seizure. _No, not a seizure._ I looked around at chemo clinic. It was empty now, save Jake and the nurses that ran it. I watched the ending credits to _Fight Club_ , the movie I had chosen for Movie Monday.

"No, not a seizure." I said and glanced at my notebook. My page covered in a large sunflower. I was still thinking about Edward. The worry - which had been placated somewhat by Alice – filling me up, every corner of my mind occupied by him. He still hadn't come back to school. Mr. Molino mentioned it once to me in passing. _"Will you make sure you share your notes with Edward when he gets back so he's ready for the test?"_

I sat with Alice again – or well, she sat down with me - at lunch today and her boyfriend, Jasper – this tall, blond guy that wore a _Full Metal Jacket_ t-shirt, that was weirdly gentle and docile for guy so interested in the military.

He was a good contrast to Alice, who bounced around like a toddler high on pixie stick dust, her words moving a thousand miles a minute. She bounced from topic to topic too – going from how rude Mr. Banner was having a test on Monday to how amazing Kim Kardashian's bronzer looked in her last Instagram post to her favorite episode of _the Office._

It was kind of weird. Alice was not the type of person I would gravitate towards to as a friend. But, she had an infectious personality and a witty sense of humor and I found myself laughing and enjoying myself with her despite my anxiety over her brother – who I didn't dare bring up again out of embarrassment and shame.

"Oh my God." She almost choked on enchiladas, her eyes widening at me as she cut off mid-sentence from how my hair would look _so cute_ with a red streak in the front. "Oh my God."

"Alice," Jasper smiled gently. "Spit it out."

Instead she coughed into the crook of her elbow. "We…" She stammered between coughs. "We should have a _sleepover_."

"Oh, Alice." I said and raked my fingers through my hair, slightly horrified at the prospect of spending a night outside of my own bed where I could possibly (most likely) have a seizure in front of people who have no idea how to handle a seizure. "I don't know."

"It'll be _fun_." She said. "You can come over to my house. We can do makeovers

"I have…" I glanced between the two of the, both their eyes – hers grass green and his dark blue like a stormy sea – wide on me. I sighed a little internally. I had a feeling that no matter what, I was going to be Alice's friend. That meant - at some point - she would know about my seizures. I had decided that I might as well be truthful about them now, so they don't come as surprise later. "A thing." I pointed to my head. "That gives me seizures and-,"

"Bella," She snatched my hand, her eyes rolling and her smile stretching over her face. "I have a thing too. It's okay." She shrugged. "And my dad's a _literal_ doctor."

"Your dad is a professor." Jasper's eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah, but he has a medical degree."

I looked at Alice. My last girlfriend was this girl with wild, curly hair that was in love with Zac Efron. That was the fourth grade. I wasn't planning on making friends in my last, official year on earth - but the idea of hanging out, talking and being, just, _human_ sounded really… _attractive_.

For a split second, I also thought about being within feet of Edward's room and my stomach did a bit of a flip-flop and I felt myself blush.

"Okay." I said quietly, my cheeks still red.

"Great!" She cheered. "We'll do it next Friday before the dance! It's going to be so much fun!"

I was thinking about that conversation and fretting over the boy I had exchanged a total of almost thirty words with. _Thirty words._ I've had longer conversations with the lunch lady in the cafeteria. _What is wrong with me?_

I sighed. _A lot._

"Bella," Jake said. "You're zoning out again."

"I'm sorry." I said sincerely as I looked into his face, my eyebrows scrunching in remorse.

"Anything you want to talk about?" Jake twisted in his chair, his brown eyes wide on me.

I pushed his shoulder. "Not really." I smiled. "It's kind of stupid."

"Ugh," Jacob groaned. "Come on, Bella. What kind of stupid is it? Like, school assignment-stupid? Brain tumor-stupid? What?"

I blushed and looked down at my notebook. "Would you believe that it's boy trouble-stupid?" I almost whispered and then braced myself for the verbal ambush.

" _What_?" Jacob shrieked, catching the attention of bald pre-teen with a surgical mask on and her iPod in her ears. "Bella is having boy troubles? Okay, I _have_ to hear this."

" _Shh_." I hushed and ducked my head. "It's really dumb. It's, like, _barely_ a crush." I cringed at that word – _crush_.

"I need you to start at the beginning right freaking now." Jake's eyes bugged out on me.

So, I did. I told him about him glaring on the first day. I told him about how we stared at each other in the lunch. I told him about our conversation during science and how I gave him my drawing for covering for me while I had an absence seizure. I told him about he disappeared off the face of the planet because apparently he was in the hospital. I told him about Alice and our brand new friendship.

I did not tell him about my momentary fantasy – with Edward and I on the cliff. While Jacob wasn't vocal about it and assured that he would support me in all of my decision, he was secretly on Team Fix Bella.

"And he's in the hospital right now?" Jake asked. " _Here_?"

"I think so." I squirmed. "It has to be here, right? You don't think they would go all the way to Banner?"

"This _is_ the closest hospital to Forks." I watched his head whip around to where the nurses' station was. His black eyes turned back to me and his wide, cheesy stretching over his face.

"What are you doing?" I hissed, guessing he had some sort of plot in mind.

He got to his feet – an arduous task since the cancer in his leg caused him some pain – and then rose to his full height – which was about six four. He grabbed his IV pole that had his chemo bag hanging from it with his good arm. "I'm going to use some cancer charm and find out."

"Jacob." I hissed again, but he blazed a limping path towards the nurses' station.

I watched in consternation and bewilderment as he ponied up to the counter, unleashing the full force of his charming smile and high cheekbones on the nurse behind the counter and he collected his intelligence. I watched him turn and shoot a thumbs up at me when the nurse turned to the computer and I audibly groaned in embarrassment, wish a hole would open up in the floor and swallow me up.

"Cancer charm." He said and replaced his pole to its spot next to his chair before plopping back down. "He's on the floor three, room one-four-six."

I felt my mouth pop open. "And what were you expecting I'd _do_ with this information?" I growled at him.

"Go visit him." Jacob said, the 'duh' implied in his tone.

"Go visit him." I repeated with a scoff. " _Hey, Edward, I barely know you but I decided to come visit you after shaking down your room number from a nurse like a_ complete _stalker."_ I said. "That makes me sound like a psycho, Jake."

"No," Jacob said and rolled his eyes. "You go in all cute and enchanting and you say 'Hey, Edward. I heard you were in the hospital and I thought I'd come visit you because I was worried about you.'" His grinned stretched over his face and I watched his eyes flash. "And he'll be so charmed that you would be thoughtful enough to come visit him he'll say ' _Aw, Bella_ ,'" Jake put his hand over his heart. " _'Marry me and have my babies._ '"

" _Stop_." I pushed Jacob's shoulder and stood up. "You're being ridiculous."

Jake just giggled at me. "Am I, though?"

* * *

I got myself into my truck in the parking lot, plopping my sketchbook and laptop on my passenger seat and sighed. I stared out of my windshield at the large gray building that was a couple of shades light that the gray sky it stood in front of. The main hospital was like thirty stories high. The children's hospital was a wide, squatter building that was hooked up to the main hospital. The name was written in a colorful crayon font on the side of the building. I used to have nightmares with that font.

The cancer ward was on the fourth through sixth floors. I didn't really know the other parts of the building outside of radiology and the cafeteria.

Floor 3. Room 146.

 _I shouldn't._ I thought. _I didn't even know him._ Not enough to come visit him in the hospital while he recovered from whatever he had.

But, I did anyway – using the stairs instead of the elevator. I climbed slowly, nerves churning my stomach. I blamed it on my brain. It was a compulsion -like when I couldn't draw and started picking at my skin. I started justifying it in my head, bartering with myself: _I'll just take a peak. If he has other people there, then I won't go in. I'll just take a peak and make sure he's okay and then I'll leave. I don't even have to say hi._

I clutched my sketchbook to my chest, bringing it in with me so my hands hand something to hold as I entered the hallway.

UWMC Children's 'themed' their floors. The cancer ward was all covered in Loony Toons. This one was bubbles? Gumballs? I wasn't sure, but there were large circles painted on the walls in bright primary colors. They were so bright, they were a little hard to look and made me want to vomit.

I started passing rooms – the even ones were on my right. _140\. 142. 144._

I stopped in front of 146.

This was a mistake. Everything about this screamed it was a mistake - my stomach, my heart pounding in my head, the choir from the multiverse of every known and unknown dimension singing that this was a mistake.

But, my feet propelled me forward anyway. _Just a peak._ I justified it to myself again. _That's it. Just making sure he was okay._

Who was I kidding?

He was asleep. And alone. And the wave of relief that poured out of me could've overtaken and drowned a medium-sized Pacific island.

The head of his bed was up at almost ninety-degree angle. That didn't stop him from trying his damnest to lay down and sleep – he was curled up like a rolly poly bug, his face pressed against a pillow and his sheets balled around his hips. His clutched a lion-shaped teddy bear that looked like it was on its last leg and a clear suction tube to his chest and his cannula was threatening to pop out of his nostrils. He was wearing a white Fruit of the Loom t-shirt and in his bicep was a IV line.

I stared at him, my breath caught into my throat. I captured every detail of him, taking complete stock of him. I watched his nose scrunch and then relax. He was _okay_. _Just fine_. All that worrying seemed so silly. _Of course_ he was okay. Another wave of relief poured over me, making me feel light and bright, like one of the bubbles painted on the walls outside of his room.

I tore my eyes from him and looked down at my sketchbook. In this last weekend, I had gone through six whole Walmart brand, spiral bound mixed media sketchbooks because of my anxiety. I flipped through this one, finding a sunflower bunch that turned out particularly well. I signed the bottom and ripped it out of my book.

 _See you in biology. –B._

I stepped further into his room to deliver his get well soon present. I put it on his bedside roll cart next to an unopened Ensure bottle and a battered copy of _Much Ado About Nothing._ He coughed and I froze, afraid that I was going to be caught. I watched his face grimace, but then settled and relaxed, his arms around his lion tightening.

 _He was so cute._ The thought popped into my head unchecked. I fought the urge to push his hair off of his forehead and rub my fingers down his face. _Don't be a creeper, Bella._ I chastised. _This is already weird._

I turned around and inched out of his room,

"Stop," Edward said, his voice creaky and rough.

I froze and I think I blacked out for a second - maybe in a seizure, maybe in just pure, white hot mortification. I turned around, trying to piece together a good story as to why I was sneaking around his room.

But, his eyes were closed. "No, stop." I watched his face scrunch and then relax again. _He talks in his sleep._ I realized, my eyes widening in shock at him. I sat frozen and listened to him mumble incoherently. He shifted and shivered. I glanced at the air conditioning vent, forgetting how drafty hospital rooms could get.

I hesitantly stepped forward again and adjusted his sheets so they were covering him more. And then very, _very_ delicately – praying that I wouldn't start trembling – I pushed his cannula back into his nostrils. His crooked smile ghosted over his lips. "Bella."

I froze again, thinking he _actually_ woke up this time. But, he was still dead asleep – his breaths rattle-y and harsh in his chest. He repeated my name as he slowly smothered his lion against his chest.

And then I realized that he was dreaming about _me._

My mouth popped open and I had that fantasy again – the one where I was standing at the cliff side, the sun kissing my skin and my future stretched before me like an endless horizon - But, instead of Edward just being there with me. We were standing hand-in-hand. That future just wasn't mine, it was _ours_.

A heaviness settled into my limbs and I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't _have_ that future. Even if I pursued treatment, even if I decided to submit myself for more torture and dissection, I wouldn't come out the same person. I would lose whole pieces of myself, more than I had already. And I wasn't going to let that happen. _No_. My fate was sealed.

And if Edward was going to be in my life – whatever was left of it – he was going to have to be okay with that. _Could he be okay with that?_

 _Could I be okay with that?_

I felt tears prickle my eyes. _No._ I liked Edward too much, I think, to put him through that. The heaviness turned into dead weight inside of me – dragging me down to the ground. I had feelings for him. I wasn't sure what those feelings were, but I knew that I couldn't let them grow into anything _tangible_. I would have to nip this in the bud. End this right now.

"Bella, please." He breathed again, his forehead crumpling.

I turned around and ran out of the room, ran out and didn't look back.

* * *

 **Hey jabronis of the twific, if like please review!**

 **Hetwaszoietsals - tbh i had to look up with HEA means bc I'm a dumb fuck mothering toaster strudel and now that I know what it means, I can safely answer you're question with a solid ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯**


	5. Chapter 5

**Edward**

"Are you ready to go?"

I looked up from the drawing – three sunflowers sketched in the middle of the page that was left for me on the roll cart of my hospital room on Monday – to Alice. Her outfit was extra bright today. I squinted at her.

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, leaning in the threshold of my doorway. "My horoscope said it was a good day to wear yellow."

I scowled at her, folding the drawing back up. "Your horoscope would say that it would be a good idea to fly off a cliff and you would happily oblige." _Actually._ I felt one of my eyebrows raise. _That wouldn't be such a bad idea with how annoying you've been lately._

After leaving school on Wednesday, Mom and I went straight to the clinic where a PFT and a sputum collection showed that my suspicions were correct and I was, indeed, having an exacerbation. The germs that made the thick gunk in my lungs their home includes a methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus or MRSA - a tough, antibiotic resistant bacteria that basically put me in the hospital every time it decided to make itself known.

Since my Lung Doctor Dr. Felix was pretty sure that a regular course of vancomycin would get me back on track, they installed a PICC in my arm and admitted me for six days. And after six days of sleeping, dealing with the deep, throbbing pain in my arm and the red rash from the vanc, staring at daytime television, hardcore respiratory therapy, and losing most of the weight I tried so hard to put back on these last two months, I was _finally_ discharged.

Every one of those six days, Alice would skip in, her panda mask looped around her ears and like a hyena on quaaludes, would chatter about her day starting from when she would open her eyes in the morning. It was annoying, but I let it slide because at least she was more entertaining than _Family Feud_ , which was my alternative.

And she was becoming friends with Bella.

Even though I had decided not to think about her anymore, I still did. I had pulled the drawing she gave me out of the waste basket while I was packing for the hospital and I would look at it, still in awe over the fact that she so talented. I caught myself wondering what she was doing at the moment. I worried about her. I flipped our conversations over in my head.

I had assumed I was thinking about her because I was bored. Hospitals were _boring_. Everything turns into routine. All the faces were the same – dietary, respiratory, nurses, doctors, radiology. I gave up on Facebook by day two and most of the games on my phone by day three. Conversations with Mom even became tedious. Anything was novelty at this point – including my strange lab partner.

But, then, Alice came in and announced that Bella was her new, official BFF and they had spent _not_ only the whole lunch hour talking, but an hour after school as well and they exchanged phone numbers. And something happened to me. I felt a new emotion – it was a painful, angry churning in my stomach. I felt weirdly protective over her, wanting to shield her from whatever preposterous plans my sister had for her. And I felt selfishly betrayed. _I was there first._

And I realized what that emotion was. I was _jealous_.

What did that mean? Did I like Bella? Like _, like-like_ Bella? I don't know. I waited, impatiently when Alice would come in to get to the part where she would talk about Bella, hanging on her words, looking for anything new that would unlock the treasure troves of mystery that she was.

I found out new things about her sifting through the verbal garbage Alice would spew at me – she was a virgo (which I didn't care about, but filed it away, anyway), she didn't like talking about herself, always flipping the conversation back to Alice or Jazz, she was caring (to the point where she paid for some stranger's lunch in front of her because they were out of credit on their student account), she wasn't really into pop culture, and she suffered from seizures.

I had stopped Alice at that point. "Seizures?"

Alice, caught off guard by my interruption blinked at me. "Yeah," She shrugged. "She didn't go into it. I don't think she likes to talk about it."

That explained the staring and why she didn't react to Mr. Molino. It could explain the shaking too. Maybe even the way she rushed out of class. I felt a tiny piece of the puzzle fall into place.

I flipped everything in my head, trying to not only figure out this girl, but these emotions I felt for her. Did I like Bella? Or was it just novelty? A much needed distraction from the CF, like Alice said? I was confused.

Until Monday afternoon.

I had woken up after a weird dream where I was chasing Bella through a flower field of all things, the sun hot and bright in a glass clear sky – which it never was in Washington – over our head. She kept eluding me, her feet bare and her brown hair streaming behind her. I couldn't run. I exercised still - sort of on this recline bicycle - but anything more than a brisk walk left me wheezy and breathless. It was the nature of end-stage lung disease.

But, in my dream, I chased her with everything I had. The ground flying underneath me.

And then when I caught up to her, she turned around, her face split and shiny with a fit of giggles. _"You caught me."_ She breathed.

And I woke up to one of her sketches on my bedside table – a bunch of sunflowers. _See you in biology –B._ Was written at the bottom. _She had come and visited me_. She _cares_ about me.

I tucked the drawing into my comp book and then rose to my feet from my bed. I decided that I wasn't sure if I liked Bella in that way. Not yet, at least. But, I wasn't against getting to know her. Not anymore.

I waited through my first classes, excited to thank Bella for my drawing and finally have an _actual_ conversation with her. It was so different. Usually, I dreaded coming back to school after a hospitalization – catching up with all the schoolwork I missed, arranging to take tests with the teachers, and getting back into the swing of things – trudging through the hours so I could get off and start my fulltime job of taking care of myself.

Now, I was impatient to the point of giddiness to get to lunch.

When I did get to lunch, I found Alice and Jasper at our usual table - Alice's forehead on surface. A soft, dramatic moan escaped her lips.

"Low blood sugar." Jasper explained as he held the straw of a soda to Alice's lips, trying to get her to drink.

She picked her head up her, fingers flying to her temples. "Where's Bella?"

I scanned around for her, searching for her face amongst the crowd. I did it in the hallway between classes too, but we seem to have almost completely opposite schedules, because I never found her.

Alice pouted. "She's not answering my texts. She's a bad texter anyway. But, still." She picked up her phone, her eyes swimming. She put it down and yanked the soda can out of Jazz's hand and took a sip.

"There she is." Jasper said and both of our heads whipped around on our necks.

"Bella!" Alice jumped to her feet only to sit back down heavily, her fingers back on her temples.

Bella jumped, startled. I wondered for a split second if her jumpiness has something to do with the seizures. She blushed and ducked her head as she approached our table. "Hey," Her eyes flicked to me and I watched the soft chocolate brown harden just a bit. "Guys." She looked back at Alice. "Are you okay?"

"Low blood sugar." Alice said and took another sip of her soda.

Bella took stock of the fact that none of us trays of food yet. "Do you want me to get you some food?" She eyeballed the Sprite. " _Actual_ food?"

"Pizza." Alice said and squinted. "Pizza sounds good."

"I'm good, thanks." Jasper said with a small smile.

"I'll go with you." I volunteered and adjusted my concentrator strap so it was sitting crossbody-style.

I watched her bite her lip and her fingers dart to her collarbone, which she forced back down to her side. Her eyes snapped over to the kitchen entrance. "Well, we should go before the line gets long."

I walked with Bella in silence to the lunch line, trying to figure out where to start, while simultaneously taking in her face. I hadn't seen it almost a week. Not, like I could forget it, really. But, I stared at her – her heart shaped face, her fair skin that was blushed red, her hair that was neither straight nor curly – taking her all in.

Her fingers came up to her collarbone again and – like before - she forced her hand back down, her face twisting with a slight scowl. It was like her hand a mind of its own and she was fighting for control of it.

I coughed and her eyes fell on me, the scowling morphing into concern. "I'm okay." I assured between coughs. _Way for CF to rear its ugly head._ I got myself under control. "Hey, thanks for the drawing."

"What drawing?" Her eyes filled confusion.

I pulled my backpack off, fished out my comp book and then pulled the drawing out. "This one? The one you left me?" I smiled.

She heated up as she looked at it. "Oh, _that_ drawing." She laughed nervously, her eyes trained to the floor so I couldn't read them. "Yeah, um, you're welcome."

"Sorry I wasn't conscious when you visited me." I felt my own cheeks heat up. "PT knocks me out."

"It's cool." She said quickly. Her hand was back at her collarbone, playing with a blemish or a bug bite. I watched her pick it off and turn it red and irritated. I felt compelled to pull it off for her, to hold it down at her side. "No worries."

"Thanks, though." I said quietly. "For visiting, I mean." I looked around the packed cafeteria. "I don't really have…" I let the sentence drop.

"It's no big deal." She said quickly – her words pouring out of her. "Mr. Molino wanted me to give you my notes for the test on Friday and I was already at the hospital visiting another friend – Really, I didn't even think you'd be there. It was complete luck I got your room number - and I thought I'd stop by. I'm really glad you like the drawing, though. I really like sunflowers. They're happy and hospitals are…" She winced. "…not happy. But, it's not big deal. I draw all the time and sunflowers are my favorite. I think I have a hundred of them. And-," She caught herself in mid-sentenced and broke it off when she saw my expression.

I blinked at her, shocked at this sudden outburst. It was the longest I've heard her talk. She hurried into the lunch line, embarrassed and I stood there, grappling with my own feelings.

* * *

I started to wonder if I offended Bella in some way. She wasn't talking to me. I knew she was kind of quiet, compared to Alice, at least – my benchmark for teenaged girl behavior. But, she only spoke to me when I asked her a direct question – at which she would answer with her eyes glued to the table – and never expounding more than what was necessary.

Biology was the same. She wouldn't talk to me unless she was forced to – either by doing labs together or when I would attempt conversations.

All week she was like this. It comforted me to know she was treating Alice the same, so I wondered if she was just cripplingly shy. But, there were some other things I noticed too – she wasn't drawing, for one. The first two days I knew her, all she did was draw. Instead she would take notes in class. She didn't even doodle in her margins.

And - more concerning – she was picking at her skin. Her chest, right on top of her collarbones and her skin around her fingernails being the areas I could see. The places she picked were quickly becoming irritated and scabby. I wanted to ask her about it, but I also didn't want to upset her.

She said she visited me to drop off notes, which is logical, I guessed. I felt my eyebrows furrow as I thought about it. It was very thoughtful of her, but also completely platonic. Like when the women at church would make casseroles for us when they would find out Alice or I was in the hospital again – no other meaning behind the gesture besides just being nice.

Maybe she didn't want to be my friend?

I had to go after school to the clinic where I finished out my antibiotic treatments of vanc through my PICC line. They set me up in a vinyl chair in an exam room and I half-heartedly did homework and ran through conversations in my head, looking for where I might've affronted the only person I had any interest in being friends with.

"Why the long face, Edward?" Emmett stopped in the doorway, his muscled arms protruding past the sleeves of his white polo.

"You can't see my face." I said, my eyebrows furrowing.

I was wearing my Vogmask and gloves – still attempting to maintain myself for my new lungs. Emmett shot me a look that said that he saw through my attempt at deflection and I sighed.

"It's nothing." I shook my head. "Girl trouble." I muttered and cringed. I couldn't believe I was having girl troubles. Wasn't I above that? Didn't I give grief to Alice for caring too much about stuff like this? And here I was, _pining_. Was I pining? _I don't even know._ I writhed in my chair a little.

He sauntered into the exam room and popped a squat on the table, the paper crinkling under his butt. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

Emmett's girlfriend was Jasper's sister, Rosalie – the head of nutrition here at the clinic. She was a nice lady – pushy, especially when it came to Alice and her inability to keep on weight – but nice. I squinted at him, knowing from Jasper _exactly_ who wore the pants in that relationship.

I sighed. "I'm just confused. This girl is confusing." _Understatement of the century._

"Have you tried talking to her?"

"Yes," I winced. "Well, not about that. But, about other things. She's not very receptive."

Emmett grinned. "It's always been my experience that honesty is the best policy." He shrugged. "Just tell her how you feel."

"Okay," I said. _But, what if I don't know how I feel?_

" _Edward_!" I heard Alice shriek and then all of a sudden, she vaporized in the doorway of my exam room, her Vogmask on. It felt very claustrophobic with three people in the tight space.

"What?"

"What did you _do_?"

"What are you talking about?"

She jammed her phone into my face. I took it from her and held it in my gloved hand at a distance I could actually read. It was on a text message from Bella. **_Hey, Alice! I'm so sorry, but I don't think I can make the sleepover Friday. Rain check?_**

"You think _I_ caused that?" I asked, baffled.

"You obviously did something if she is cancelling on me last minute!" Alice threw her head back and groaned dramatically.

"What does _your_ sleepover have to do with _me_?" I asked and handed her cell phone back to her.

"I'll leave you kids to it." Emmett said with a chuckle. I didn't even bother to say goodbye. I was too focused on my stupid sister and her stupid accusations.

"You," She jammed a finger in my face. "You came back to school and Bella started acting all different." Alice paced around. "What did you _say_ to her?"

 _I've been trying to figure that out all week._ "I didn't say anything!"

"Well, you must've done or said something." Alice insisted, her green eyes flashing. "Because she was fine, _happy_ and then you show up and all of a sudden she's weird and quiet."

"I didn't do or say anything, Alice." I seethed. "I've been nothing but a gentleman."

"You're a big, fat stupid socially-awkward troll is what you are." She huffed and crossed her tiny arms. "You better fix this. Bella is my friend and I'm not going to have my big, fat stupid socially-awkward troll brother _ruin_ that."

"I don't have to fix anything." I jerked in my chair, the vinyl squeaking under my butt. "Since I didn't _do_ anything."

But, Alice blustered her way out of my room and I was left chained to my antibiotic drip with more questions than I had answers to.

* * *

I decided to take Emmett's advice about honesty and I was going to be upfront with Bella. _What do you want from me? Do you want to be my friend? Do you not?_ Easy questions with easy answers. If it was a no, then I could be done with her. I could go back to just caring about me and no longer wondering about her tiny nuanced expressions, or her odd behavior, or the subtext in her words.

But, I honestly, truly, desperately wanted it to be a yes.

So, Thursday, I decided that I was going to march up to Bella and demand answers.

Unfortunately, my lungs had other plans for me.

The air had gone from cold and dry to cold and humid, which made the sticky mucus in our lungs mobile. And there was really only way for mucus to go – up and out.

Alice was feeling it too as we always woke up at the same time to do breathing treatments. When we were kids, we would go downstairs and watch television together in the living room while we did our Vest – this life vest looking device that would vibrate and shake the mucus out of us. Alice would always end up re-falling asleep on hers and I would end up startling her awake with my coughing. It was a Cullen tradition.

Now, as teenagers, we did them alone in our bedrooms. But, I could hear through our shared wall her hack at the same intensity that I was.

"Are you sure you guys are up to going to school?" Mom asked as she stood outside our doorways in the hall, listening to the symphony of bodily fluids emanating out of our bedrooms.

"Y-y-yes, M-m-mom." Alice said from her room, her voice quivering from the Vest. She turned it off. "I have a student government thing today."

She looked at me – the worst of the pair – and I removed my nebulizer from between my lips, exhaling medicinal vapor. "I have to go too." I said, my voice gravely. I coughed into a tissue and added it to the pile next to me on the bed. "I have a test."

"Okay," She gave a little sigh. "If you both feel up to it."

Alice and I took turns coughing on the way to school. "Ugh," Alice groaned and reached for the nebulizer we kept in the car. "I'm coughing as much as _you_ now. It's so _gross_."

I shot her a look and opened my mouth to say something rude, but I coughed instead. _Stupid lungs._ I chastised. _Do your job._

"Handicap." Alice instructed when I pulled into the parking lot. "I can't deal today."

I couldn't either. My sats were 92% today. I was generally feeling like crap. It wasn't going to be a good day in my comp book, I could already tell. Normally, I would've taken up my mother's offer to ditch school and just sleep and catch up on Netflix, but I had a mission today.

I decided I was going to intercept her before lunch. Get to her before Alice did.

However, I coughed all through my first periods. Most of my teachers were generally okay with me getting up without asking to move into the hallway to hack up mucus. Only my Spanish teacher made me take a pass – even though the oxygen looped around my face should be enough. My chest grew tighter and tighter, the cold air outside make it hard to take in a deep breath and the tickle in my chest unable to be placated.

I sighed. I had a mission, but CF said I had to take care of myself first.

Before I went to the lunch room, I went to the car to use the nebulizer. The albuterol would help with the tickle in my chest and open up my airways. I walked across the schoolyard, the snow from last week – what was left of it - had turned mushy and gross. And the skies were churning ominously gray, threatening to storm.

I got in the car – this used Volvo that Mom and Dad got Alice and I to share – and started it, warming my fingers in front of the heater before loading the nebulizer.

I plugged in my phone to the stereo and started some music - some Billy Joel – and I pretended to play along while I inhaled the steroid vapor through the mouthpiece.

A new song started to play in my head and I turned down Billy so I could feel out this new piece – my fingers moving as if I was banging it out on my old Casio at home. I hummed around the plastic mouthpiece as the harmony came along in my head.

Something caught my eye – a red sweater - and I looked up to Bella. _She wasn't at lunch?_ That was odd. She was exiting the fine arts building about a hundred yards away from where I was sitting in the parking lot, her arms wrapped around her sketchbook. I watched her glance up at the sky, a concerned look on her face.

And then her face grimaced and she stiffened and suddenly fell backwards. Alarm shot through me and I jumped out of my car, abandoning my nebulizer and my cell phone. "Bella!"

I ran towards her as quick as I could.

She was having a seizure – a big one, like you see in medical dramas and movies. Her limbs jerked around on the pavement and her face scrunch into a bunch of different expressions.

I tried to think back to CPR class when they went over seizures as I watched her writhe, panic making the blood in my veins icy. I looked around for help, but everyone was either in class or at lunch – safely away from the sky that threatened to pour. _Protect the head_ boomed in my mind.

I jerked off my concentrator strap, letting the device and its carrier drop to the ground and then my jacket. I jammed it under Bella's head – which was oozing blood from where it impacted with the concrete.

"Bella," I said, my hand going to her shoulder. I knew I wasn't supposed to hold her down and I knew there was something about her tongue, but the panic made my thoughts blurry and indiscernible. "Bella, it's okay."

She smacked me chest and moved around to her head, away from her flailing limbs.

"It's okay." I said and petted her hair.

She continued to seize and I watched her, feeling helpless. I don't know what to do. She had a seizure disorder - she told Alice. So, I guessed this wasn't _uncommon_. But, should I get help? A teacher? The nurse? Should I not? What do I do?

While I grappled with my decision, Bella suddenly stopped. Her limbs fell limp and so did her face. I put my hand in front of her nose to make sure she was breathing, relief flooding through me when she was.

I looked at my car, which was still on and running and then at the sky, which was starting to release big, fat rain drops. _At least I could get her out of the rain._ I thought. I put back on my concentrator strap around my body and then very carefully lifted Bella up into my arms, my jacket wrapped around her.

I breathed in from my nose and out of my mouth as I carried her to my car, my heart protesting the exertion by beating fast in my chest. I got her into the passenger side and closed the door and then climbed into the driver's side.

"Bella?" I asked, my hand running down the side of her face as I watched her eyelids flutter. She groaned a little. "Bella, do you need to go to the hospital?"

She mumbled something, but I didn't get it. I glanced at the wound on her head, separating her hair to see it better. I knew that head wounds bled faster and worse than other wounds, but this one looked kind of rough. _Hospital_. I decided. _She should see someone._

I threw my car into reverse and sped out of the parking lot. It was twenty-three minutes to UWMC's ER from Forks - I knew that from last March, when _I_ had to be taken there. It felt weird being the person on the other side of an emergency.

Bella continued to come to, her eyebrows scrunching. I watched her hand go to her head where she hit it.

"You had a seizure, Bella." I said. "But, you're okay."

"Seizure." She mumbled and opened her eyes, confusion filling them up. She looked around the car. "I had a seizure?"

"Yeah, Bella." I said as I got on the highway that led out of Forks to Seattle. "I'm taking you to the hospital."

Her eyes widened and she stiffened and I panicked, thinking she was going to have another seizure. Instead she scowled, her face flaming red. "I'm not going to the _hospital_!"

"But you hit your head." My eyebrows scrunching. "I want to make sure you're okay."

Her hand darted to her head again and came back bloody. She regarded that for a second and then her cheeks flamed red again. "I'm _not_ going to the hospital!" She looked at me. "Turn this car around right now!"

" _Bella_." I groaned. "How do I know that this isn't a head injury talking?"

That offended her. Her eyes blazed at me, shooting fire. "I've had seizures since I was eleven years old. I would know if it's a _problem_."

"But, you're bleeding."

"Edward," She said, her voice impassioned. My name on her lips flipped my stomach around. "Look, I appreciate the concern. _I do_. But, my brain and I have a long-standing relationship. It's kind of an asshole, but it let's me know if it's something serious."

I vacillated, considering her words. I glanced at her, to her bleeding head that was blazing a crimson trail down the side her face. "Are you sure?"

She writhed, her face blushing. "Edward, I _swear._ When you go through a thing like _brain cancer_ , you become very intimate with the inner workings-,"

My fingers suddenly felt numb on the steering wheel and my heart stopped beating. "Brain cancer?" I whispered, interrupting her.

Her eyes widened as she realized what she said. Her eyes drifted to her lap. "Yeah," Her fingers raked into her hair. "It's what caused the seizures." She grimaced, her face going green. "And other things."

Another piece of Bella fell into place. I looked at her with awe. I had my own struggles, but I couldn't imagine going through something like brain cancer. She was tough _._ Beyond tough. _She was strong._

I coughed suddenly, forcing something up. Suddenly, Bella's eyes went concerned – framed by the blood on her face that was dripping onto her jacket. She picked up the box of tissues that sat at her feet and handed me one. "Are you okay?" She asked.

She just had a _seizure_ , went through _brain cancer_ , and was _bleeding from the head_ and instead of worrying about herself, she was thinking about me. Another piece of her became revealed. _She was selfless._

I didn't want to go back to school. I wanted to take her to her favorite place in the universe. We could go to Jupiter, dance in the aurora borealis, I didn't care. I wanted to spend forever with her. Forever with the most amazing girl on earth.

* * *

 **weird side note - if they ever decide to reboot the twilight series and redo the movies i could so see KJ Apa playing Edward. Squishy baby faced motherfucker. ALSO go watch the preview for Five Feet Apart (which isn't about 2 dudes chillin in a hot tub, like I originally thought) but about cystic fibrosis! A disease that thoroughly needs more awareness, tbh.**

 **Arazatah - literally my favorite thing are easter eggs and i try to throw as many as I can in my fics, knowing full well nobody gives a shit about them but me lol**


	6. Chapter 6

**Bella**

I had a routine after a tonic-clonic seizure.

The first was inspecting myself. The most embarrassing part of seizures was not the flailing or making a scene or even hitting my head – it was the inevitable peeing myself. I carried two changes of clothes in my truck for this reason.

Luckily, the stars had decided to align in the universe for the first time in my miserable existence and I had my seizure – the one that Edward Cullen happened to witness – almost immediately after I used the restroom. So, I was safe from that mortification, which would probably actually give me a stroke and kill me.

The second was inspecting my head. If I clunk it over my right ear, that could cause me some issues since I had a gigantic, pulsing tumor right there. But, I hit my head on the left side of my forehead. So, no worries there.

The third was calling or texting Charlie. As my epilepsy almost guaranteed me at least two or three of these a week, he liked to know when they happened so he wouldn't worry that I would have one while driving to and from school. Washington didn't require us to report TC seizures, but doctors could if they felt I was dangerous and I begged both Kate and Charlie not to so I could keep driving. This was the compromise. I took out my phone and sent a text to him.

And then, finally, I usually took a nap as tonic-clonic seizures exhausted me.

Not today, however. Today I deviated from that part of the routine, as I was hyperactive to the point jitteriness, riding this weird high that I, Bella Swan, was in the car with Edward Cullen. I looked around the inside of his car. There was a nebulizer in his cup holder and his heater was going full blast. His stereo said he was playing Billy Joel, but no music emanated from the speakers.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked as I watched him pull off an exit, still suspicious that he was trying to take me to the hospital.

"Well," He said, his fingers coming up to rake through his messy bronze hair. "You are still bleeding from the head."

I touched the sore spot, forgetting it was there and winced. _Yep_. I pulled my fingers down and inspected the bright red wet. _Still bleeding._

"My house is just around the corner." He said and pointed. His emerald eyes were wide and anxious. He was worried over me.

"You're taking me to your house?" I asked.

He blushed. "Unless you want to go to your place." A small smile ghosted over his lips. "Or the hospital."

Anger flashed in me and I felt my cheeks blaze red. " _No_ hospitals."

A hospital would be the worst place to go. First of all, a bunch of strange ER doctors and nurses would force me to do the rigmarole of unnecessary testing, find out that _yes!_ I _do_ actually have a brain tumor! Even after I would tell them a _million_ times. And _hurrah_! It's _treatable_! only to have my dad or my neurologist, Kate – literally the only person on the face of the planet I trusted to come within a foot of my brain anymore – come and tell them that she doesn't want treatment. And if they didn't get there fast enough, they would force me to do things I don't want to because I was a minor and it was 'in my best interest.' Or, in other words, my _literal_ hell on earth.

"My house it is then."

I stole a peak at Edward. Of course it _had_ to be Edward. I couldn't tell if that was the universe working for or against me. I looked down at my lap that was not covered in my own urine and decided that the universe was probably working _for_ me. At least, this time around.

But, was it working to get Edward and I together? That was the real question.

I sighed internally. I really, _really_ wanted that to happen. I stole another peak at him – at his nose and his nice jawline and his tousled reddish hair.

Every time I opened my sketchbook, I drew him. I drew his eyes or his hands or his lips or just sometimes I drew his whole face. I couldn't convince my brain to draw inanimate objects anymore. I just wanted to draw _him_.

I laid awake, thinking about him. I hung on his words when he attempted conversations with me. I liked my name when he said it with his slightly hoarse, dead sexy voice. I stole peaks at him when I knew he wasn't looking at me. _I wanted him it so bad._

But, I couldn't let him in. I couldn't do that to him. To me? What would it be, really? Nothing. I couldn't promise him anything. I wouldn't be able to give him what he wanted. _Needed._ Healthy relationships were built on trust and honesty. I wouldn't be able to give him that, because I wouldn't be able to give him the truth.

And any more roots laid just made it that much harder to let go later.

So, I tried to push him out of my mind. I tried to stay away. I didn't draw – no matter how much it _hurt_ , no matter many scabs I compulsively picked into my skin. I thought about just changing schools altogether. Or dropping out. Charlie offered it once, since it was my last year on earth and all. I, at least, put in a request to have my schedule changed, change my biology period to another hour.

I experimented with still maintaining my friendship with his sister. I liked Alice and I felt like that friendship wouldn't go deep enough for me to hurt her when I died. We were just having fun. But, it was hard because she and Edward were kind of a package deal.

And now I was stuck in a car with him, speeding through a middle-class neighborhood towards his house.

God, if this was the universe working _for_ me, it certainly was doing a _shitty_ job.

He pulled into a driveway a two-story cookie-cutter house that looked like a twin to the ones on either side of it, next to a white Honda crossover.

"Are we alone here?" I asked and looked at the house, perturbed.

Something flashed in his eyes and he flushed red. "No," He shook his head and pointed to the Honda. "My mom's home."

"Oh," I said, suddenly feeling really nervous over meeting his mom. I was meeting Edward's mom. That was a very girlfriend-y thing to do. I scowled. _Stupid universe._

Edward got out of the vehicle, came around to my side and opened it before I could do it myself. "Do you want a hand?" He asked and offered it.

I looked at it and thought about protesting, but my brain decided for me and I grabbed it. His fingers were cool, even though he had the heater cranked to stifling hot in the car. I looked into his face at his cannula, realizing that it was probably underoxygenation.

We walked into his house together, through the front door with a wreath made out of fake evergreen branches and pinecones. I realized the wreath was just the foretaste as I looked around the open floor plan of the first part of Cullen household, which looked like a Target catalog had a baby with a HomeGoods showroom floor. It made Charlie and I's house of mismatched, secondhand stuff look like a Salvation Army reject bin.

"Hello?" I heard a voice call.

"It's me." Edward called and pulled off his hoodie, revealing his IV prongs in his arm, covered with a plastic wrap.

Suddenly a pretty woman with the same green eyes as Edward and Alice and caramel colored brown hair vaporized in the house. She looked at Edward with concern and then at me. Her concern morphing into straight up panic. "Oh my God. Honey, are you okay?"

"Bella fell and hit her head." Edward said quickly.

"Why weren't you at school?"

"We were at school." Edward said. "I started taking her to the hospital, but we determined that it wasn't serious enough for a hospital and we were close to the house…"

"I'll get my first aid kit." Mrs. Cullen said. "If you want to go to the kitchen."

Edward led me through a spacious dining room to a kitchen that looked as good as the rest of his house – showroom ready. He told me to sit at the breakfast bar, which I obediently did. I watched him shed his oxygen onto the empty barstool next to me, dig through a drawer and then go to the freezer, preparing me an icepack.

"Oh, I don't think it's that bad." My hand went to my forehead.

"You have an egg." He said, his finger covering mine as he looked into my eyes, concern lighting them up. The cool touch blazed white hot and my heart beat wildly in my chest. He pried my hand off my forehead and replaced it with the ice pack. I winced. "Sorry." He breathed.

"It's okay." I whispered back, getting lost in the tide pools teeming with life in his eyes, almost forgetting my own name.

"I got my first aid kit." Mrs. Cullen said, a white box in her hands as she breezed into the kitchen, making us both look down and blush. She scrutinized Edward. "Edward, oh-two all the time now. You know what Dr. Mendov said."

He sighed, rolled his eyes and affixed the cannula back to his face and sat down on the barstool, placing the concentrator in his lap.

"I don't have alcohol, but I do have some hydrogen peroxide." Mrs. Cullen set the box on the counter and then moved and grabbed some paper towels and handed them to me.

"That's great, thank you, um, Mrs. Cullen."

"Oh, sweetie, call me Esme." She smiled warmly. "Are you guys hungry? I can make some food."

"I'm okay." I mumbled as I wiped my face of dried blood.

Edward coughed into the crook of his elbow. "I'm okay, too."

"What have you eaten today?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Breakfast and an Ensure."

She went to the fridge and pulled out another Ensure and put it on the table. He groaned, but opened it and drank it. "I feel like Ensure pulses through my veins."

"You lost five pounds in the hospital." Mrs. Cullen said as she went back to the fridge and started pulling out things to make a sandwich, placing them on the counter behind her. "And you have-,"

"-to keep healthy for my new lungs." Edward rolled his eyes as he finished her sentence for her, his crooked grin stretching over his face. "I know, _Mom_."

Edward twisted in his seat, taking the paper towels from my hand and splashing some hydrogen peroxide on them. "You're missing a lot." He explained as he gently rubbed my face.

"You're on the lung transplant list?" I asked, trying not to let myself get lost in his eyes again.

He nodded as he cleaned my face. "Yeah, since last June." He coughed, as if to punctuate his sentence. Edward finished cleaning up my face. He reached for a square bandage from the first aid kit and affixed it to my head.

"And they can't come soon enough." Mrs. Cullen said, with a shake of her head.

I thought about that for a second – a cynical, horrible flash of hope in me. Maybe we _could_ have something, because we were both on our way out. I banished that thought as I made it, though. If anyway deserved a long and happy life - it was Edward.

"Lunch." Mrs. Cullen said with a smile as two plates were pushed onto the breakfast bar, each with a sandwich on it and a handful of chips.

* * *

"Sorry about my mom." Edward said as he picked the last of my chips off of my plate. His mom excused herself to the upstairs to fold laundry. "Her hero is Joanna Gaines from _Fixer Upper,_ if that explains anything."

I laughed. "She's fine. Perfect." I said. "She's the mom that I imagine moms _should_ be, you know?"

"Do you not have a mom?"

I shook my head. "She bounced a long time ago while I was still a baby."

"Oh," His face crumpled in genuine sadness and remorse. "I'm sorry."

I shook my head, eager to bring back the shine in his eyes. "I never technically knew her, so it doesn't bother me."

Edward coughed again, turning his head to the side. "Sorry." He said.

"You don't have to apologize." I said, crushing a chip on my plate with the tip of my finger. "I know you can't control it."

"I have a question for you." He said once he got himself under control.

I started to brace myself. "I may have an answer?"

He grinned. "It's nothing bad. I promise."

"Okay." I put my face on my fist, taking him in. "Shoot."

Instead he coughed. And coughed. His shoulders hunched and his face flushed and he sounded like he was trying to get something up again, the coughs wet and phlegmy. I grabbed my napkin and handed it to him and put my hand on his shoulder, unsure what to do beyond that.

"Sorry." He said as he coughed into the napkin, apologizing even though I just told him he didn't have to.

He got himself under control, but his breaths were harsh and wheezy. I watched him pat the front pockets of his jeans and then looked towards the front of the house despondently.

"What do you need?" I asked and started to get up.

"My inhaler." He gasped. "It's in my hoodie."

I went to the front of his house, my boots clunking on the tile flooring as I powerwalked, and found his hoodie, pulling out his inhaler from the left pocket. I powerwalked back to him, handing the inhaler off like a baton.

"Thanks." He took long pulls from it. "CF has a cousin named asthma that likes to show up and party sometimes."

"CF?"

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Cystic fibrosis? Did Alice not-,"

I shook my head. "And as someone who _has_ a thing, I don't like asking other people about their things, you know?"

He smiled. "Yeah, I know." He shrugged though. "I've had it all my life, though, so it's not that big of a deal. It's just apart of who I am."

My eyes narrowed at him and I made a noise. "I disagree."

"What do you mean?"

"I think your actions, your impact on the world makes you who you are." I said. "Diseases are just imperfections of an already imperfect species. They're not a defining trait."

His lips rolled into a lopsided pout as he thought about my words. "But, CF has made me do things and see things differently than other people. I appreciate life more." He said, his eyes darting to the window. "I don't take simple things – walking up stairs without getting winded, the advancement for medical science, the love of my family, to name a few – for granted like other people do."

"I'm not disagreeing that CF has _shaped_ you, but I don't think it _defines_ you." I shrugged. "Mother Teresa died of heart disease. Do you know what she's known for? I can tell you it's not heart disease."

He grinned at me. "You're ridiculous, Bella." His eyes flashed with a mysterious emotion. "In the best of ways."

I felt my cheeks blaze as I realized we had started leaning towards each other. This is exactly what was supposed to be _not_ happening. I was trying to stay away from Edward, push him out of my mind completely. And yet, here I was inches from his face, having philosophical debates. And yet, I hadn't picked at my skin once or felt the pins and needles in my left side or felt the need to pick up a pencil and draw _at all_ in the last hour and a half I had spent with him.

I tore my eyes away from his and put them on the counter. "What was your question?"

"Oh, um." He stammered. "I was actually wondering if I…" He sighed. "Made you mad is some way?"

My head whipped around. "No. Why do you ask that?"

"Well," He said, his eyes going to his concentrator as his face blushed. "Well, you've been avoiding me and then you cancelled the sleepover with Alice and…" He made a noise, his sentence dropping.

I sighed. "I'm sorry if I seemed that way. That wasn't my intention. I'm just…" I wrung my hands together. "Working through some stuff."

His eyes rolled to the ceiling, his grin sliding up his face. "So, I haven't accidentally insulted you some way?"

"Well, besides threatening to drag me to the hospital," I smiled at him. "No, you haven't."

"Would you then reconsider having the sleepover with Alice tomorrow, then? She was _really_ looking forward to it and she's ridiculously bummed that you cancelled on her."

I pushed my hair out of my face, behind my ear. My logical brain, the one that _should_ be calling the shots, said that this was a mistake. That I needed to abort mission right now. Eject myself from this situation. But, my actual brain – the one that looked like fancy Swiss cheese and had the impulse control of a ADHD toddler – screamed yes. That I needed this. I needed this boy with the CF and the asthma and the jawline of a Greek god more than the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins.

"Yes. I will." I said. "I have a question now."

His mouth mashed into a thin line. "Should I be scared?"

"Oh," I let a mischievous grin flit over my face. "All the time."

He laughed. "Okay, _now_ I'm curious."

 _Logical brain: Don't do it. Don't you dare._

 _Actual brain: Do it! Do it! Do it!_

I inhaled. "Has anyone asked you to the girls' choice dance yet?" I asked in a volume that was barely above a whisper.

I caught him completely off guard with my question. I watched his face cycle through the different shades of red, finally landing on a lovely shade of maroon as he made a couple of noises that sounded like he was trying to form a sentence in Thai. "Um," He laughed nervously. "No. Nobody's asked me."

 _Logical brain: This is a mistake._

 _Actual brain: Not a mistake, just the universe giving you some happiness for once._

"Would you want to go with me?"

"Yes." He said quickly, too quickly. He blushed. "I mean, I'm no dancer." He patted his concentrator.

"You're in luck, then." I said and smiled. "Because I can't dance either. Really."

"Two non-dancers going to a school dance." He smiled. "Should be interesting."

 _Logical brain: You're putting down roots that shouldn't be there._

"Very interesting." I agreed with a smile.

 _Actual brain:_ _Go to hell, logic._

* * *

I made a noise as I sat on my hands on my bed, inspecting my closet for something I could wear on Saturday. Do I want to go shopping? _Should_ I go shopping? Should I take Alice? Should I text Alice? What do I _do_?

I felt a headache bloom out of the side of my head where my tumor was. I rubbed my temple and winced with it. I was stressing out. For _what_? It was a dance, for petessake, not my _wedding_ day. I groaned and flopped myself back on my bed.

"Everything alright, Bells?" Charlie appeared at my doorway.

"I don't have a dress for this stupid dance I'm going to on Saturday." I said a little forcefully than I meant, my headache making me irritable. I glanced at my desk where I threw my truck keys. _Was the mall still open?_

"Dance?" He sounded surprised.

Contrition hit me like a baseball to the face as I realized I wasn't keeping Charlie in the loop. I sat up my fingers still on my head. "Yeah," I said. "I'm going to the girls' choice dance this Saturday at school."

"With a _boy_?" He sputtered, his eyes bugging in disbelief.

"And his sister and his sister's boyfriend." I dropped my hands and laced them together. "And I'm going over to a friend's house tomorrow for a sleepover."

His face paled a little with white hot astonishment.

"Don't look so surprised, Dad." I pulled a knee to my chest. "My frontal lobe may look like a wiffle ball, but I can still make _friends_."

He regained his composure. "I'm not surprised." A slight smile lit up his tired face. "Just happy for you, Bells."

I sighed and looked at my foot. "It's not changing anything. I'm just having some fun."

He didn't hear me, though. Or, at least, he chose not to hear me. "Do you need money? You know, for a dress?"

I looked back at my closet and my meager wardrobe. "I think I can find something to wear."

"Okay," He nodded and started to turn to head back down the stairs to watch ESPN until he inevitably fell asleep in his lounger.

I flopped back on my bed, picking up my cell phone. **I don't have anything to wear to the dance.** I texted Alice.

When we had gotten back to school, Alice – in her raging, overenthusiastic fashion – almost tackled Edward and I to interrogate us about our strange disappearance. We told the truth: I had a seizure and Edward was there to save the day. I also told Alice that I would be happy to have a sleepover, feeling bad that I disappointed her in the first place. And then, we told her that we were going to as each other's dates to the dance.

"Oh my freaking God. No _way_." She shrieked at us. "That's amazing! We're going to have the _best_ time." She said. "The _quintessence_ of times."

I googled cystic fibrosis while I waited for Alice's reply, finding its Wikipedia page. I was still debating the integrity of my decision to ask Edward. I didn't want to string him along. I didn't want to make any promises I couldn't keep. But, at the same time, I wanted _him._

I rolled over onto my belly, scrolling through the page for CF, reading up on it for completely scientific purposes. I learned it was a hereditary disease, which makes sense since both Alice and Edward had it. I read it affected the gene coding that produces mucus, turning it from thin and slippery - like it was supposed to be - to thick and sticky, trapping bacteria in it and generally just coming through and wreaking all sort of havoc. I read that it affected a bunch of different organ systems – the lungs, the pancreas, the kidneys, the liver, the stomach. I read that it took a lot of maintenance to keep it under control.

I read that there was no cure.

I frowned at that part, propping my chin on fist. Not even a lung transplant is a cure. It was just a stopgap measure to prolong the life expectancy of someone already destined to die.

I threw my phone on my bed shoved my face into my pillow. If there anything I knew, it was the sick desperation of having a disease that you know there isn't any cure to. I could wholeheartedly empathize with Edward on that.

I turned my head to my side and stared at my hand which was starting to tremble slightly. That's why, this time around, I wasn't going to let that desperation plague me. I wasn't going to keep putting off the inevitable. If the disease wanted me so bad it was going to put four different brain tumors in my head, then it can have me.

I closed my eyes and started to drift off to sleep, my pillow crushed against my face, when I vibration next to my head caused me to reawaken. I picked up my phone to a text from Alice. **I have a dress you can wear!**

I sat up and squinted. While, that was very nice of Alice, she had the body of an Olympic gymnast. I glanced down at my size C chest and then composed a text back. **I'm a couple size bigger than you, Alice.**

She texted back a moment later. **I didn't think of that. Hmm…**

I rolled my eyes at my new friend _. What a sweet, naïve loon._

I glanced at my closet and stood up, sifting through it. Since I didn't have a mom and my dad was the most practical person on the face of the planet – most of my wardrobe consisted of flannel and jeans. I did have one item – an old dress from my aunt's wedding. I cringed at the memory. I had no hair, as the wedding was after a major surgery. But, the dress was kind of pretty – if you were into things like lace and ribbons.

I threw it on my bed and snapped a picture of it with my phone and sent it to Alice for approval. The texted back a moment later, sealing the deal that this was the dress I was going to wear.

 **That's Edward's favorite color!**

* * *

Alice directed me to her house from the passenger side of my truck, even though I had memorized the way to the Cullen homestead the day before when Edward had driven me. Their neighborhood name was _Crestwood Heights_ and I suppressed a laugh as the name was preposterous and conceited – like the developers were playing adlibs with a bunch of words pulled out of the back of a _Home & Garden._

"I'm so excited!" Alice chirped. "I think I literally bought out the facial mask section of Ulta yesterday. You should've _seen_ the store clerk." Alice's jewel-green eyes widened as she mimicked the sales associate. "I bought some masks that use this special Korean formula. Have you see Korean peoples' skin, Bella? It is what _angels_ are made out of."

"I've never done a facial mask." I whispered.

" _What_?" She shrieked.

"Alice, I have a _single_ dad." I said and rolled my eyes as I passed the row of tract homes. "I don't do girly things." If Charlie could avoid it, at least.

"Have you ever had a sleepover?"

 _Besides with my roommates in the hospital?_ I though sardonically. "No."

"Oh my God." Alice said, the palms of her hands going to her forehead and her eyes widening. "A sleepover _virgin_. I'm…" Her sentence dropped off as she couldn't think of word profound enough to convey her emotions. "I have so much to do."

I ran through my list of stuff in my head again, making sure I didn't miss anything. I mean, I pretty sure Charlie would be more than okay with dropping off anything I forgot. However, I didn't want to bother him if I couldn't help it.

I had pajamas, my toothbrush, my medications, my hairbrush, a change out clothes for tomorrow, my dress for the dance, a lot of socks. Far too many socks. But I was so nervous this morning packing, that I just started randomly grabbing stuff and jamming them in my worn duffle. I think my alarm clock and three different pairs of shoes made it in there.

And I had my sketchbook. Now that I had given up on avoiding Edward – much to my logical brain's chagrin – I had relaxed. I could draw again. _Real things._ Not just his face. I busted out a pine cone in about two minutes just to flex my skill again. I drew his hands the page later, but still - _I could draw again._

I crossed through the threshold of the Cullen house, shedding our wet rain coats, since it was pouring outside.

Mrs. Cullen appeared from the kitchen, a gigantic smile stretched over her oval face. "Welcome back Bella." She greeted.

"Hi, Mrs. Cullen. Thanks for having me."

"You're so polite." She clapped her hands together. "I wish everyone Alice brought over was like you."

I blushed, scanning around for Edward. I thought it was a little odd that Alice came with me, but I just guessed she thought she should give me directions. I didn't want to ask about him, though. He was my date to the dance, but I didn't want to seem obsessive.

Mrs. Cullen - a literal angel on earth - placated my curiosity without any prompting. "I won't order pizza until Edward gets home from the clinic." She said as she floated back to the kitchen. "But, if you're hungry, there's a vegetable tray in the fridge."

"Is today the last day of vanc?" Alice asked as she followed her with me on her heels.

"Yes." Mrs. Cullen said, busying herself over something on the counter. "But, they're not going to remove the PICC until Monday when they get the thumbs up from Dr. Felix."

Alice opened a cupboard and pulled out a bag of chips and then the fridge and pulled out two sodas. "Come on, Bella." She motioned to me.

We clunked up the stairs and I peaked in rooms as I passed them. We passed by an office of some sort and what I assumed was the master bedroom. I passed Edward's room, my heart beating a little faster as I glanced in his space – an obvious boys' room with a plaid comforter that was slightly messy. And then we got to Alice's room – whose doorway was right next to Edward's. Alice's room was bright pink and absolutely covered in Hello Kitty paraphernalia.

"Are you a fan of Hello Kitty?" I asked jokingly as I inspected the pile of different stuffed Hello Kitties in varying sizes and outfits in the corner.

"Is it that obvious?" Alice joked and dropped her backpack and stretched out over her bedspread, which was – unsurprisingly – Hello Kitty themed.

"Just a tad." I said and sat down on her bed.

She popped the bag of chips open. "I actually don't really like Hello Kitty all that much anymore, but my mom had so much fun decorating when we moved here, that I don't want to hurt her by telling her I hate it now." She crossed her ankles. "I just keep saying I got eight more months and then I'll be in a college dorm somewhere decorating with black lace and skulls and Edgar Allen Poe quotes like the inner goth in me wants."

I laughed. "The inner goth gets what the inner goth wants."

I glanced around, peppered amongst the cutesy Japanese character was a smattering of medical equipment, including an IV pole with a pump that sat next to her bed. "Where are you thinking of going to college?"

Alice made a noise and glanced out of the window at the pouring rain. "If I had my way, it'd be somewhere sunny. University of Hawaii or UCLA." She snorted, her voice going melancholic. "Arizona State, even."

"But…" I prompted.

"But, given that my medical team here has known me and my specific flavor of CF since I was three months old, it would be foolish for me to try and start over somewhere." Her eyes went to her lap. "And since my womb-mate has one foot out the door – so to speak – I don't want to be far away in case something were to…" Her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes went dark. "…happen to him."

A chill went through me as I looked over Alice's shoulder at the wall that they shared. _How bad was Edward's condition?_ I shuddered as I thought about Edward _dying_.

"No more doom and gloom." Alice said and perked up. "What about you? What are your college plans?"

 _The great university in the sky._ Wait, that was kind of doom and gloom. "Oh, I don't know yet." I said and raked my hand through my hair and then nervously stuffed it into the chip bag and pulled one out.

Alice nodded, her lips pursing at me. "I could so see you taking a gap year to, like, travel Europe or something."

I glanced out the window as I nibbled on my chip. "Yeah," I agreed. "Europe."

* * *

 **REVIEW! That is all lol**


	7. Chapter 7

**Edward**

"Mom!" I shouted. "I'm home."

"Okay, honey!" She responded back, probably from the kitchen. "Can you ask the girls what toppings they want on their pizza?"

"Sure." I said as I pulled my raincoat off and rubbed moisture out of my hair in the entryway. I bounced up the stairs – slowly, since stairs and lung disease weren't friends – and gravitated towards the Destiny's Child and the high-pitched shrieking that was emanating from Alice's and I's bathroom.

" _Alice_!" I heard Bella. "You got it in my eye!"

"Well, don't move." Alice said, her giggles filling up the upstairs.

"You're the one that's moving." Bella protested.

I poked my head into the open door, finding Bella sitting on the cover of the toilet, a mud mask of some kind over her face, her eyes scrunched closed. Alice was dancing in front of her, gooping the stuff on Bella's cheek. A shock of protectiveness flashed through me. I wanted to get in-between my sister and Bella and protect her.

Instead I resigned myself to fulfill my mission. "Um," I started. "Mom wants to know what kind of pizza you guys want?"

I already knew Alice's order before she spoke it. "Pineapple and ham." I cringed. Pineapple did _not_ belong on pizza.

I watched Bella's eyes pop open at my voice. They flashed at me, surprised to see me standing in the bathroom doorway. I watched her blush a little. "I'm not really picky. Whatever you guys want."

"No, Bella." Alice corrected, her tone indulgent like she was telling a child why they couldn't cross the street without holding hands with an adult. That also made me mad. Bella didn't need to be talked down to. "You gorgeous, chestnut-haired, slumber party virgin – you have to choose a pizza topping. We all get a pizza."

She shrugged again. "Olive and bell peppers."

"Interesting." Alice said. "Unique, unpredictable. I like it."

 _Unique. Unpredictable_. Those were good terms for Bella.

"What do you get, Edward?" Bella asked, her brown eyes on me.

"Edward's boring." Alice answered before I had a chance to answer. "Double cheese."

"Hey," I protested. "I'm not _boring_."

"That's not boring." Bella smiled a little in reassurance at me. "It's _classic_."

"So are Dickensian short stories and penny loafers. Doesn't mean they're not boring." Alice said quickly and turned to me. "And you need to disappear, sir. This is a _sleepover_ with a gigantic glaring neon sign that says 'No _brothers_ allowed.'"

Bella's eyes flashed with some hidden emotion and she rubbed her hands over her bare knees. I really didn't want to leave either, but I knew if I tried to hang around, Alice would get all huffy and Mom would come and force me downstairs. Instead I delivered our pizza order by shouting it down the stairs and then retreating to my bedroom.

I switched to my large concentrator and tried to do homework at my desk, but the fact that _Bella_ was sitting six feet from my bedroom doorway was making me hyperactive and restless, like I was riding a sugar high. I kept catching bits of their conversations as their voices floated over the playlist of pop songs.

"…a half n' half mixture of Ansel Elgort and Russell Wilson." Alice said.

"Which halves though?" Bella joked. "Right and left? Top and bottom?"

Alice giggled. "Definitely Ansel's face and brain in Russell Wilson's body. What about you? Define your ideal specimen of the male species."

I leaned over and pushed the door closed so I wouldn't hear Bella's answer. I moved from my homework, abandoning my Spanish writing assignment halfway through a sentence and went to sit at my keyboard. I turned it on and put on my headphones, letting the music envelope around me.

I started working on the song that had come to me yesterday before Bella's seizure. It was a slower song, a ballad.

Did I have feelings for Bella? Yes. Did I know what those feelings were yet? I sighed. No. I knew I felt compelled to protect her. I knew that I felt jealous when other people monopolized her. I knew I cared for her. Her heart-shaped face and big brown eyes popped in my brain and I felt myself blush at the rise in my heart rate and the rush of blood in my groin. I knew I was _attracted_ to her.

Was that love?

My song picked up tempo. It became fevered, desperate to work out these feelings.

It didn't help that she had me pulled so many different directions. She comes and visits me in the hospital one day, turns and ignores me the next, and then asks me out to the dance. There were so many mixed signals, she could've been a faulty satellite dish.

I bit my lip. She said she was working through some things, though. And she had brain cancer. It wasn't a far stretch that those two things could correlate. Maybe that's all it was. Maybe she did have feelings, but she had to put herself first.

I hit a wrong note on my keyboard and flinched.

I knew exactly what that felt like.

And that was okay. I think, out of anyone in that dumb high school, I would be able to empathize the most with what she was going through. It wasn't like Jasper and Alice, where Jazz could sympathize but never really know what Alice is going through.

I pulled off my headphones at the same time I heard Mom yelling that the pizza was here.

I had to rehook myself to the brand new downstairs concentrator that my parents got after my Heart Doctor Dr. Mendov decided this last hospitalization that my heart was 'at risk' and that I needed supplemental oxygen '23 hours a day now' before going to the kitchen.

Bella and Alice were already there, loading up their own plates of food, giggling at nothing like only girls could. Bella seemed a lot more relaxed now, and I breathed a sigh of relief that whatever was bothering her was now past.

I inspected her outfit – something I rarely did since her large, clear eyes that held her secret thoughts captivated me enough – a t-shirt and a pair of running shorts, her legs long and graceful. Another rush of blood in me had me blushing and scrambling to get some pizza.

"Movie time!" Alice sang. She was in a matching outfit, which meant that Alice probably chose the outfit for Bella.

They went into the living room and I hesitantly followed, bracing myself to be kicked out by Alice. I usually made myself scarce when Alice had friends over, but this was Bella and staying away from her was almost painful.

"Bella, since you are the sleepover virgin, you get to pick the movie." Alice said and pulled open our entertainment center, revealing our extensive DVD collection. "What's your favorite?"

Bella sat on the couch and placed her plate of food on the coffee table and then sat on her hands. "I don't know if I have a favorite movie."

"Everyone has a favorite movie." Alice's fingers removed one. Mine is the _Titanic_ – timeless, of course."

"Um," She glanced up at me and blushed. "I think if I had pick, it'd be _50 First Dates_."

Alice scanned around and pulled it out. "This one?"

Bella nodded, her face deepening in color.

"I haven't actually seen that one yet." I said and sat down next to Bella, next to my concentrator that made its home underneath the side table. "What's it about?"

"Drew Barrymore's character has brain damage that resets her brain to the same day. She can't make long-term memories anymore. And Adam Sandler's character gets her fall in love with him every day." Bella said, her eyes softening and a small smile flitted over her face. "It's hilarious."

Alice loaded the movie in player and dimmed the lights, taking the free space on Bella's other side.

We watched the movie and ate our pizza – well Alice and Bella watched the movie and I watched Bella. Her eyes never left the screen, instead I watched her face as she laughed through the Adam Sandler comedy – her giggles light and airy. Her eyes always became sad when Drew Barrymore's character came on screen. I wondered what the meaning was behind that.

I noticed she started shivering when the air conditioner kicked on and I pulled the throw blanket off the arm of the couch and placed it over her legs. Her large eyes darted to me, surprised.

"Thanks." She whispered and in the glow of the television screen, I could see her blush.

She turned back to the screen burst into laughter, her face lighting up. I watched her silently mouth the lines with the actors. This really was her favorite movie.

I glanced at her hands, which were trembling slightly. I watched her make a fist and then relax it. I felt compelled to grab it and lace my fingers up with hers.

I examined her face as it shifted from emotion to emotion. Did she feel the same things I felt? Did she feel how warm it was with our arms so close together? Did she feel the electricity between us?

I looked at her hands again, watching them tremble. I felt my eyebrows knit together as I fought myself. _Don't be weird, Edward._ I chastised myself.

I heard a sniffle and looked up to watch a tear roll down her cheek, her eyes shiny with emotion. I glanced at the movie – which I hadn't really been paying attention to, so I didn't really know what was happening.

But, I watched Bella's face, fighting the urge to wipe the tear from her cheek and hold her against me. I wanted to protect her from the horrors of the world. I wanted to protect her from herself. I wanted to show her how absolutely beautiful she was – her mind, her soul - even though her brain was "kind of an asshole."

Did I have feelings for Bella? Yes. Did I know what those feelings were yet? Yes.

Those feelings were love. I loved Bella.

I coughed.

" _Edward_ ," Alice groaned. "You ruined a _good_ part."

Bella wiped her face, banishing her tears and quickly picked up a napkin for me. "It's fine." She assured, her eyes concerned on me. "I've seen this movie a million times. You okay?"

I grabbed the tissue from her and spat in it. _Gross_. Why am I so _gross_? "Yeah," I said and balled the tissue in my fist and then stared at it. "I'm okay."

Her hand came over and laid on top of mine, right on top of the tissue I balled, her fingers still trembling. I looked up to her smile – her sweet smile – and inhaled a ragged breath. _I'm okay._ I thought. _Perfect._

* * *

"Hey," Alice whispered. She was a loud whisperer. "Bella?"

"Hmm?" Bella's voice was more muted, but Alice's and I's beds were on the wall that divided our rooms, so I could still hear if I strained my ears.

"Did you ask Edward to the dance?" Alice asked. "Or did he ask you?"

"I asked him." She whispered back, her voice drowsy with sleep. "It's a girls' choice dance, Alice." She pointed out.

"I know." Alice said. "But, I think he likes you."

"You do?" Bella sounded more awake now.

"Twin telepathy."

They both giggled.

"Yeah, like really _likes_ you." Alice said and then paused. "Do you like him back?"

The was a hard, pregnant pause. The only sounds came from my concentrator that hummed next to my bed and my heartbeat in my ears.

"Bella?" I heard Alice whisper, but there was no answer. "Are you asleep?"

There was silence. I sighed. I think I knew the answer already, but hearing Bella say it would just about make my short, miserable existence.

Bella's hand never left mine - not for the rest of the movie. I watched her face, which lit up at the end as she sang along with 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' After the movie, Alice whisked Bella back up to her room for more sleepover stuff, leaving me downstairs to flip over my newfound revelation in my head.

I flipped it over now while I stared at my ceiling. I couldn't sleep – which wasn't good in the grand scheme of things. Rest and exercise and eating well were all very necessary parts of my life to keep myself heathy for new lungs. I couldn't let it win. I couldn't let CF win.

I scowled.

I tallied my hospital stays from last year in my head. Eight in total – two exacerbations, three infections, once for my heart, one scheduled to help correct my heart, and one scheduled to be evaluated to be placed on the transplant list. I was almost coming to the one-year mark of my first one, actually.

I had a thing in my heart called a pulmonary valve stenosis – or a fancy word for my valve that connected my heart to my pulmonary artery was narrow - which is a pretty common birth defect of and it usually doesn't cause problems in most people. However, I was not most people. I had CF, which put stress on my arteries. That plus my PVS put my my heart was at risk for failing.

On top of my lungs already failing.

We figured this out last year, when my mom found me unresponsive in my bed and I was rushed to the ER, resuscitated, spent four days on intubation and then was prescribed supplemental oxygen and was recommended for a double-lung transplant.

I couldn't let CF win.

My original goals were to complete my Reverse Bucket List in the back of my comp book, but now I only had one goal: Bella. I couldn't let it win, because if it won and I died, I would be leaving Bella. And I just found her, I wasn't ready to leave her yet.

My one-liner today in my comp book I underlined a bunch of time and I ran it through my head again, letting it comfort me right into unconsciousness, a smile on my face.

 _My imperfect heart beats so beautifully in the palm of your trembling hands._

* * *

I got up early to walk. Mom had an exercise bike downstairs, but I decided that I wanted to walk this morning – me and my oxygen concentrator that I wore on my shoulder. The storm from the last couple of days had passed and the sun was shining. It was pleasant – _humid_ and brisk being January and all - but it was nice.

I walked because I liked finding trails that I could file away for when I get my new lungs and could _run_ them. The first item on my Reverse Bucket List was running. Running as fast and as hard I as could go.

When I got back, I found Bella at the top of the stairs, pouring over her sketchbook.

"Everything alright?" I asked.

"Oh," She glanced up at me and wrung her hands. "Alice is doing her breathing treatments. I let myself out to give her some privacy."

"You can come and hang out with me." I offered, my heart skipping a beat and my face heating up. "You know, while you wait for her."

"O-okay." She nodded and got to her feet and followed me.

I looked around at my messy room, embarrassed a little. I half-straightened my bedspread for her and she took a seat on my bed, bouncing a little and placed her sketchbook on her lap.

"What are you drawing?" I asked and sat down at my keyboard bench. My eyes darted to my two drawings of hers that I had tacked to my corkboard on the wall. "More hands?"

She looked down. "I was actually drawing the freesias your mom had on the dining room table." She picked up her book and showed me the bowl of flowers that Mom replaced every so often on the table. I didn't even know those were called freesias. But, Bella's drawing looked exactly like them.

I felt desperately curious to flip through her book. _Would that be too much?_ "Can I…" I reached out. "Can I see?"

Her hands gripped the book for a second in decision, but she picked it up and handed it to me. I opened the cover, finding an evergreen branch. I turned the page and found the Rainier mountain range. "These are very Bob Ross-y." I smiled as I flipped through more foliage and birds and butterflies. I found a lot of sunflowers.

"Well," She said. "He was the happiest guy on the face of the planet."

I laughed, flipping the page to a couple of sets of eyes. "I guess that's true." I flipped the page to a smile, I squinted at it. _I knew this smile._

"I don't really have a say in what I draw anyway." She sighed despondently.

I looked up to her, my eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean?"

"One of the part of my brain that was affected by cancer was the part that handles decision-making, particularly compulsions." She pulled a leg to her chest. "Drawing helps keep my mind occupied and calms my anxiety and keeps my synapses firing in the correct way. If I don't draw, my brain punishes me by making me do compulsive things like pick at my skin-,"

So _that's_ why she had sores on her chest. I looked down at her drawing pad. Because she wasn't drawing. _But, why wasn't she drawing?_

"-but," She shrugged. "I don't really get a say in what I draw. I just draw whatever makes my brain happy." She smiled and chuckled. "Maybe Bob Ross was brain damaged too."

I glanced back down at the familiar-looking smile, closed the book and handed her drawing pad back to her like it was precious - which it was if it was vital to Bella's health and happiness.

"I didn't know you played the piano." She said, her eyes darting to my Casio.

I ran my hand over the keys. "Self-taught." I said proudly.

"Since I let you see my book; can I hear something?" She grinned mischievously.

I felt myself blush and my stomach knot up, but turned anyway. "Do you want a cover? Or an original?"

Her eyes widened. "An original, of course."

I grinned and started my keyboard up, running through a scale before starting on the song I was working on yesterday. I had decided that it was a love song – my mind and soul telling me through music that I was in love with Bella before I even realized it.

She moved from the bed to sit on my little foldable piano bench next to me – that wasn't really big enough to hold two people, but I scooched over anyway for her.

At this proximity, I could smell Bella – which was mixture of strawberry shampoo and fresh soap. And I could feel her heat radiate off of her. I could see small freckles in front of her ear and how long her eyelashes were. I could see scars through her hair on her scalp.

"This is-,"

She froze. And I stopped playing. "Bella?" I asked, twisting on the chair. Her eyes shook just slightly back and forth and her mouth hung open. "Bella?" I tried again.

Suddenly she blinked, her eyes filling with momentary confusion and then she scowled and looked at me, her eyes widening. "Sorry," She blushed a deep red and ran her fingers through her hair. "That was a seizure."

"You don't have to apologize." I said and smiled at her. "I know you can't control it."

She grinned, realizing I was quoting her back to her. "Did I miss any of the song?"

"No, but I think you were about to tell me how amazing I am." I joked.

She looked up at me, her brown eyes shining. "You're amazing." She whispered.

* * *

I sat on my bed with my nebulizer on, trying to prepare myself for the evening, so CF wouldn't come and ruin the dance.

I could hear Bella and Alice giggle as they finished getting ready in the bathroom.

"Bella!" Alice shrieked. "You're so _pretty_! Edward! If you don't shower Bella with at least forty thousand compliments tonight, I am disowning you as my favorite brother."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "I'm you're _only_ brother." I called back.

"Jasper's here!" Mom called up the stairs.

I got up and switched oxygen sources, putting the strap of my concentrator over my dark blue button-down – picked out by Alice because it would be 'matchy' with what Bella was wearing - and under my collar and then fixed my black tie and ran my fingers through my hair. I bounced down the stairs, greeting Jasper.

"Nice bolo tie." I said.

"Thanks," He grinned, his hand wrapped around a bouquet of flowers for Alice. "I'm kind of wearing it to spite Rosalie, who said it looked dumb."

"Alright!" Alice shrieked again. "Here we come!"

Mom bounced into the room with her cell phone, Dad on her heels. "I need pictures!"

Alice breezed down the stairs wearing a black dress that matched her black hair. She skipped into Jasper's arms.

And then Bella came downstairs and I was glad that I was wearing oxygen, because she stole my breath away.

She was in this dark blue, lacy dress that offset against her pale skin beautifully – making it look like fresh cream. She wasn't really wearing any makeup – I heard her arguing with Alice over that one earlier – but she did have some mascara on, bordering her large brown eyes. And her hair, which was normally neither straight nor curly – which she explained to Alice earlier was caused by chemo – framed around her face.

"You look great." She smiled at me. "Very dapper."

"You look _amazing_." I breathed, inhaling consciously through my nose and out of my mouth.

"Compliment number one." Alice said, her arm wrapped around Jasper's waist. "Only thirty-nine-thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine to go."

* * *

"Wow," Bella breathed. "This place looks great."

"Thanks." Alice tipped her head and smiled. "I'm so very glad they took my advice to go with the 'night of lights' theme instead of 'under the sea,'" She made an annoyed noise. "Where the hell were they expecting to find beach balls in January _anyway_?"

The gym had been done up in about a million white fairy and Christmas lights. They hung off the walls and dripped off the ceiling - turning the place ethereal, like heaven. I looked down at Bella, watching the twinkling lights glow off of her skin, in her eyes. _Heaven._

Alice clapped her hands together. "Let's dance!"

Bella and I looked at each other, both of our faces paling. "I can't dance." I said and Bella squeaked out a quick. "I don't think that's a good idea." At the same time.

She rolled her eyes, grabbing both of our hands. "Nobody looks good at school dances. You just have _fun_."

So, we did – we danced. We danced to bad pop songs and sang along to 80s hits. All four of us squeezed together as we bounced with the music. We laughed. I wrapped my arms around Bella's waist and she ran hers around my shoulders. We were in our own world.

"Are you having fun?" She yelled in my ear over the music.

"So much fun." I yelled back.

Suddenly the loud Lady Gaga song finished and Alice announced that she was going to get some punch. I decided to take a break too, eager to catch my breath. We found an empty section of bleachers against the wall and sat down.

I sucked air in through my nose and exhaled it out of my mouth.

"So, you're a liar, Edward Cullen." She started in a normal volume now that we were out of the cone of sound emanating from the DJ's speakers.

I looked down at her smiling face. "What," I inhaled. "Doyou," inhale. "Mean?"

Her grinned stretched wider. "You said you were no dancer." She teased. "But, I saw some pretty _interesting_ moves out there."

I grinned back, my fingers finding her sides under her ribs. " _I_ have interesting moves?" She shrieked with the tickles. " _You_ were the one leading."

"Stop!" She shrieked again, her hands moving over mine to pry them off her sides. I tickled harder instead. "I'm so ticklish there! Stop!"

I relented on the tickles, but left my hands on her waist. We were so close, I could see the fairy lights dance her clear eyes, turning them into swirling galaxies. Her hand was on my shoulder. She ran it down to my hand.

Another song ended and I had an idea.

"Wait here." I instructed and got to my feet, adjusting my concentrator strap.

"Where are you going?"

"It's a surprise."

I approached the DJ booth, which was manned by an anachronistically dressed man with long dreadlocks. I requested a song, hoping he chose the right one, since it was a cover.

But then the speakers started emanating a soft ukulele version of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'—the same one from the movie last night - and I mentally fist pumped as I re-approached the bleachers. Bella rose to her feet, her eyes wide.

"Will you dance with me?" I held out my hand.

She nodded and took my hand. "This is my favorite song."

I led her to the dance floor, wrapping my hands around her slight waist and she wrapped hers around my neck. "I saw you singing along to it last night during the movie." I admitted, blushing.

She smiled as we started swaying to the music. "You're an observant person."

She pressed closer to me, placing her cheek against my shoulder as she sang along with the words. I basked in her heat and her presence as we rocked back and forth. I marveled at the fact that she seemed to fit so naturally against me – like two puzzle pieces finding their mates. I pressed my nose against her temple, smelling her around the oxygen tube jammed in my nostrils. I closed my eyes, not wanting this night to end, because this night was heaven. _Heaven._

"Bella," I whispered against her hair. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

She wrenched away from me. "What?" Her eyes flashed with bewilderment.

"I think…" I started again, confused by her reaction. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

She froze, her eyes blanking and her mouth slightly open and I thought for a second that she was having another seizure. I reached out to touch her arm, make sure she was okay. But, she recoiled away from me, and that rejection smarted right on top of my cheeks like I had been slapped. "I-I," She said, her face turning red. "I got to go."

She moved quickly towards the door of the gym and I followed as quick as my failing lungs would allow. "Bella," I said as I chased after her. "Bella wait."

She burst into the clear, January air and the sting of the cold socked me in the chest and I started to cough from the irritation. "Bella," I gasped. "Please, wait."

"You can't be in love with me, Edward." She wheeled around, her eyes flashing angrily. _Why was she angry at me? What did that mean?_ "This can't be happening."

I felt my cheeks flame red, the smarting turning to heat. "Well, I am." The sting of her rejection hurt worse than the cold air – but it was a different sting. More like a stab right through the diaphragm by a white hot cattle prod. "I'm sorry that I'm not the perfect guy – that I'm sick – but I care about you and-,"

" _What_?" She shrieked, interrupting me. "Edward, no. You're perfect. _More_ than perfect. You're _everything_." She started to tear up and the heat in me subsided in me a little. She shook her head, her eyes going to her feet. "It's just I…." She sucked in a breath. "I didn't tell you the whole truth. I didn't just have brain cancer in the past tense, I _have_ brain cancer. Now. Currently." Her arms crossed around her. "And…it's killing me."

I froze, feeling all my blood rush from my arms and legs, going numb. "You have cancer?" I blurted stupidly.

She nodded. "A tumor in my temporal lobe." She pointed to the right side of her head, above her ear. "I don't have much time left – a year, maybe." She shook her head. "And I can't hurt you like that. I _won't_ hurt you like that."

"Bella," I whispered, taking her all in, wanting to reach out and take her and press her against me. I wanted to tell her it was okay. I couldn't though - the only thing I could see was a tombstone with her name etched into the stone. It froze me to the ground.

"It's probably just easiest if we just end things now." She nodded, her voice turning into a whisper, tears on her face. "Just rip it off like a Band-Aid. I won't bother you or Alice anymore, okay?"

I just stood there in the cold, wet rain as I watched her turn and head for her truck, trying to figure out how this night of heaven turned into the darkest pit of hell.

* * *

 **Everyone's so quiet! Let me know what you think! Or not lol If it's garbage, I can just stop writing it i guess lol**


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